Time to Change the Road You're On
by paperbkryter
Summary: Five years after being separated during the final battle with Lucifer, Sam and Dean are reunited - but not in the way either of them expected. The world is in trouble again, Sam's time is running out, and Dean has to find a way save them both.
1. Sam the Demon Hunter

Note: I started this fic early in Season 4, and I suspect it was right around the "I Know What you Did Last Summer" episode. We hadn't learned about the demon blood yet, or much about angels and their vessels. Even when a fic ends up being an AU, I try to keep as close to canon as I can, so I found myself having to do a lot of tweaking and improvising as time passed and new information was revealed. (I was really surprised when some stuff I actually got right ahead of time!) Then I got stuck on how to end the thing. Two, nearly three seasons later and I have _finally_ found the right way to wrap it up. When I started I never thought it would take me so long to write, nor that it would grow to such immense proportions.

I also never expected to lose my own brother right in the middle of it.

RIP Mikey. If the silver Camaro in Chapter 2 sounds familiar, it should – it's yours.

-T

* * *

><p>Dean's instructions were simple.<p>

1. Find the demon called Ruby.

2. Eliminate the abomination.

Simple was good. Dean liked simple. What he didn't like was starting a case with nothing at all to go on but some really vague instructions.

Right out of the starting gate he had to ask "what abomination?" Was it Ruby, or something else? The answer was not forthcoming, which Dean pretty much expected. His superiors tended to be stingy with the intel.

If Ruby were the abomination then simply finding her would kill two birds with one stone. If she weren't – well it was obvious she was tied in to it somehow and he still had to find her. There would be nothing simple about that. After the last battle with Lucifer, Ruby had vanished without a trace. Nobody knew where she'd gone. There had been no sign of her on any plane; Heaven, Hell or Earth.

There was someone who might be able to put Dean on the right track toward finding Ruby, and that was Sam. The problem with that was they had been out of contact for years. Dean would have to find him first. Fortunately locating Sam would probably be a hell of a lot easier than locating Ruby. Sam was still Hunting. He was still driving Dean's car. If he was still using the tried and true techniques of subterfuge and stealth the Winchesters had always depended on, then Dean could find him in a heartbeat.

First though, he _needed_ a heartbeat.

He asked for his old suit back, and was refused, so he went out and found a suitable vessel on his own. This did not please his superiors, who would have preferred Dean go about his task without involving humankind. His immediate supervisor simply sighed and stated that if Dean got himself in trouble, _he_ wasn't going to come rescue his ass. That was fine with Dean. He didn't plan on getting into any trouble.

Unfortunately, trouble always seemed to find him.

* * *

><p>Sam sat in a worn armchair – or rather, slumped in a worn armchair – with his right hand raised to rub his temple and his long legs stretched out before him. The fabric had torn on one arm of the chair, and the stuffing was spilling out. Sam idly plucked at it with his left hand, flicking the pieces onto the floor beside him, taking care not to flick them too hard and send them too close to the fire. If they were set alight the whole damn house would go up in flames. That might be an option when he was done, but he wasn't done.<p>

"Let's try this one more time," he said quietly. "Where did you come through?"

"Screw you!"

With a sigh, Sam lowered his hand and sat up straighter in his chair. Sitting across from him in another chair, bound and trapped inside a circle of arcane symbols, was a kid just this side of being able to vote. It looked like a kid at any rate – save for the black eyes and the twisted snarl.

_Well_, Sam thought. _Teenagers do snarl sometimes. I know I did when Dad and I got into it._

He shook his head slowly and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Wrong answer."

The demon laughed. "I don't spill my guts, you send me to Hell. If I dospill my guts, you _still_ send me to Hell. So why should I tell you anything? Huh?"

Sam sat back in the chair and resumed picking at the stuffing. "Dante described nine levels of Hell in the _Divine Comedy. _That's because he only knew about nine." He paused and leveled a cool look at his captive. "You and I both know that Hell is a lot bigger than that. So, if you tell me where the hole is that you squirmed out of, I'll keep you in the single digits. If you don't, I'll flush you down to the very bottom of the Pit – and trust me, that will hurt more."

The demon's teenaged costume blanched white. "You're a bastard, Winchester."

"By definition no, I'm not. Now make up your damn mind. I don't have all day."

Technically that was a lie for two reasons. One, it wasn't day at all, but well past midnight and two, Sam didn't have anything else on deck besides finding the crack this particular demon crawled out of and sealing it shut. He simply wanted to get the interrogation and exorcism part out of the way so he could pop some pain medication and get a couple of hours of sleep.

With a growl, the demon spit at him. Where saliva hit the lines of the Devil's Trap it sizzled and popped, evaporating into nothing. There was no way it could have hit Sam, but it pissed him off. His eyes narrowed as he slowly stood up out of the chair. He began pacing back and forth just outside the borderline of the trap, never taking his eyes off his captive. Before him the demon stiffened. A squeak of pain issued from its throat.

"Don't," Sam said, his voice lowering an octave as his gaze locked onto the demon's black-as-pitch eyes. "Push me."

"Idaho. It's in Idaho in a storm cellar."

"There are a lot of storm cellars in Idaho." Sam raised his chin ever-so-slightly and turned up the pressure.

"An old church, near a farm," the demon shrieked. "Johannsen's. It's just outside of Arco, Idaho." He looked up at Sam pleadingly. "I'm not lying! It's in Arco!"

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "Good," he said. "That's what I wanted to hear."

The demon was panting. Sweat ran down his temples. "Please," he said breathlessly. "Please let me go."

"You know I can't do that," Sam replied.

"No. No! Don't…"

His final plea was choked off abruptly. The kid coughed once, then twice, and smoke began pouring from his nose and mouth like noxious black vomit. It sank toward the floor where it swirled restlessly within the constraints set upon it by both the devil's trap and Sam's own power. Sam reached out with his mind again, this time seeking a weak spot within the veil separating Hell and Earth.

_Just one little push…_

A crack appeared in the floor. He could feel heat rising up from the tear, and for a second he could hear the screams of the damned and smell the reek of sulfur. With one last psychic nudge the demon's smoky essence slipped through the crack, descending back into Hell with an inhuman scream. Sam released his hold on the veil, and the crack slammed shut with a "snap" that was more felt than heard.

As soon as it was over, a sharp, hot javelin of pain stabbed itself into Sam's skull. He reeled backward, groping blindly for the chair, and once finding it, literally fell into it.

"Mother fu...shit!"

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. The room had gone black, and the roar of his own heartbeat deafened him. He fought the urge to panic, and found success there. After all, he'd been in this position before many times, and his senses always returned. This knowledge did not, however, prevent the initial surge of fear as he wondered what would happen if his senses did not snap back. Deaf and blind he'd be at the mercy of any one of hundreds of nasty things that had him on their hit lists. He wasn't afraid of death though, he was afraid of what torture they'd inflict on him _before_ they killed him, torture that could quite possibly follow him into the afterlife.

_The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Sammy._

For several minutes Sam sat in the chair, head bowed between his knees, rocking back and forth until the pain eased up and both his hearing and sight returned. The pain never went away entirely. It remained to nag at him in his every waking hour, and had done so for many years. He controlled it with prescription drugs and alcohol, prompting more than one doctor to express worries about the damage he was doing to his liver. Sam just laughed at them. One look at a brain scan and they shut up about his liver. He was already a dead man.

Rising from the chair with a bit of a wobble, Sam slowly made his way across the room to where he'd laid out his things on a scarred wooden table. His vision was still blurry, making it difficult to read the labels on the half dozen or so prescription bottles lined up in front of him. He found the one he sought and swallowed a pill with a swig of tepid water from within a plastic cup. Picking up a second bottle, he checked his watch and then shrugged.

"Close enough," he murmured, and fumbled off the cap. His right hand had gone numb again.

Dammit.

He sat down at the table after he took a third pill. Head bowed, elbows on the table, he remained there for some time, trying to pull himself back together. He'd have to get some rest before he moved on to Arco, Idaho. The atlas was in the car wasn't it? Sam had no idea where the hell Arco was located, but he had to get there before another demon squeezed out of Hell.

It had been five years since Lucifer had been dispatched back to Hell. Most of the demons loose in the world had been sucked down with him. During this time Sam rounded up the stragglers, and whenever a new one escaped, he tried to hunt down and seal the place where it had gotten through. He still Hunted the more mundane nasties of course, but his main focus remained the demons. After all, he had a reputation to uphold, and anymore he was one of the only Hunters out there who knew how to handle the damn things. There was still Bobby, of course, but in recent times the old man hardly ever ventured out of his house. He'd be a fool if he did, and if he tried Sam would make him go back home. Bobby's arthritis had gotten too bad for him to go running around popping ghosts and exorcising demons. He was just reluctant to admit it.

Sam levered himself up out of the chair when he heard the boy stirring behind him. He couldn't crash just yet. It was time to get up off his ass again and take care of the demon's young victim. A hospital would look the kid over and call the cops. The cops would get him home. All would be good.

_Thank God I found this dump not far from County General. I seriously don't think I could drive any further than that tonight._

* * *

><p><em>I really do look like crap.<em>

Sam lowered his eyes from the rear view mirror and switched off the Chevy's ignition. The slightest of hesitations as her engine cut out warned him he'd better take her in for a tune-up, and made him wonder, not for the first time, why he even kept driving the thing. The Impala's mileage was off the chart, it devoured gasoline like nobody's business and violated emission laws in at least half the country. It was also disgustingly conspicuous, which made lying low from cops, and various other persons Sam would prefer to avoid, a pain in the ass.

_I keep her because she's family, and all I have left. _

He pushed open the door, hardly noticing the old squeak that would go away with a squirt of DW-40 and return as loud as ever within just a couple of days. He'd no sooner give up the car than he would his life. Anymore the car _was_ his life. It was certainly his home. This ragged old house with the sagging roof was merely a pit stop along the way to nowhere in particular.

_Not true,_ Sam reminded himself, _I need to get to Arco before that rift gets any bigger._

First though, he had to get some sleep. His head was pounding despite the meds he'd already taken, but as he staggered in through the door he immediately sought another pain pill and the bottle of whiskey he had stashed in his bag. The pain was such a constant anymore even forced unconsciousness didn't entirely relieve it. A hangover was nothing, he'd hardly notice that, and getting just a modicum of rest of his overtaxed body and mind was well worth the trouble.

He retreated to the living room and threw another log on the fire. The house he'd chosen was just far enough away from civilization that nobody would notice a trickle of smoke coming from the chimney. If anyone _did _notice and show up at his doorstep, Sam would simply play a little Jedi Master trick on them and convince them they'd seen nothing at all. Using that ability wouldn't help his headache, but it would keep him out of jail. So far he had remained undisturbed.

The sofa was filthy and stunk of mildew, but it was also soft, and by virtue of facing the fire, warm. Sam lay back on it with one arm thrown across his forehead and the whiskey bottle within easy reach at his side. He didn't bother to set an alarm. He rarely slept more than a couple hours at a time, even when he was completely sauced. Being sauced tonight was further away than he desired. He groped for the whiskey and raised it to his lips.

Once he might have felt a pang of remorse, or maybe guilt, over the fact he was drinking too much, but that little voice of conscience had been silenced a long time ago. It wasn't like he was drunk 24/7. He still did his job. He still functioned. The alcohol was simply another entry on the long list of medication he took on a daily basis. It was a pain killer, sleep aid and anti-depressant rolled into one.

_Technically alcohol is a depressant, not an anti-depressant. That's a common misconception._

Maybe he hadn't silenced that voice as well as he thought he had.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes. The headache still throbbed, but the edge had been taken off enough that he could almost relax.

Almost.

It was this twilight time between awake and asleep that he hated, when his mind wandered to places he'd rather it not go and things he thought were forgotten came back to haunt him. Even long hours on the road weren't as bad. It was tapping into his subconscious that led to problems. His subconscious mind harbored secrets, secrets revealed during the twilight time. None of them were pleasant.

There was once a time when all the secrets of his subconscious mind, and more than a few memories he might have wanted to keep, were buried so deeply Sam couldn't access them at all. It had taken months, nearly a year, before things started to come back to him. Once the immediate danger had passed, before the long term effects became known, Bobby had joked that Sam had "blown a fuse."

Sam rolled over on the sofa, burying his face in his arm to avoid breathing in the smell of the rotting upholstery. There were many memories he regretted regaining. For a while he had forgotten about the night the Hell Hound came, about Dean's screams, the metallic stench of blood, and the dirt wedged beneath his nails from the grave. He'd forgotten about his own grief. When it returned it was as if the event had happened yesterday, and the memory thrust itself like a dagger into his heart.

Lying there on a rotting sofa, years later, Sam remembered. He remembered Dean's first death – and then Sam remembered his last.

_Stop. _

He moaned. It was too late. Once the floodgates were open it was hard to stop the memories from bursting forth, just like it had been impossible to keep Hell from escaping through the gaping wound Lilith made between worlds.

"_I can give you Lilith."_

"Liar," Sam muttered. "Lying bitch..."

It had been the other way around. Ruby, the consummate liar, taught by the master himself centuries ago, Azazel's favorite protege, she'd even managed to sucker Dean by the end. They trusted her.

_Loved her._

"Shut up."

And she had betrayed them, leading Sam right to Lilith, and from there, right into Lucifer's clutches.

Sam's stomach churned as he relived the vicious attack. No fancy tat would stop the Devil from taking what had been so carefully prepared for him. Crimson smoke burst from the open portal and went straight for Sam. It had been crimson, not black like other demons, but the dark red color of drying blood, and it burned as it forced its way into him. It had felt as if he'd swallowed a thousand razor sharp needles that ripped and shredded his mouth and throat all the way into his gut. There had been nothing – _nothing-_ anyone could have done to stop it.

While the others – Bobby, Dean, a handful of other Hunters – battled the demons that swarmed out of the pit in Satan's wake, Sam had been waging a war of his own. The battlefield had been inside his own head where he struggled to maintain his position as master of the keep. This had surprised the interloper, who had expected little or no resistance from his vessel. Sam held on to what was his own, refusing to be overcome completely, and instead of rejecting the demon-borne abilities that had led him to this place, he had embraced them.

Lucifer had also not been expecting the power he had helped instill inside his vessel to be turned against him. Instead of giving ground, Sam took it, at one point siphoning off Lucifer's own strength. He treated the Devil as he would any demon possessing a human, with one exception. Instead of "pulling" the demon from its host, Sam concentrated on "pushing" the presence out of his own body, using every bit of strength he had to perform the greatest exorcism of all – upon himself.

Satan fought dirty. Bits and pieces of memory assaulted Sam's mind, little flashes of pain and visions of horrors unspeakable. He had seen angels fall to Earth with wings smoldering from the flames of Hell; friends, family and all the world's innocents brutally savaged to death, their tortured souls writhing, drowning, burning in pits of molten lava; a planet all but destroyed by disease and war. Past, present and future, it was what had been, what was, and what would be if Lucifer succeeded with his usurpation.

Azazel's gift, his sacrifice, had opened the door to the Apocalypse.

No normal human body could tolerate possession by the Devil. His presence was caustic, so poisonous the "meat" would rot from bones turned soft and brittle. Azazel had solved the problem, creating a demonic super human. Sam's body would survive, but so too would his spirit, trapped inside his own head and slowly tormented into madness to feed the master's lust for pain. He'd gotten a taste of it before, but possession by the demon "Meg" held no comparison to this.

Sam knew he'd been successful – obviously. Much of his knowledge of what happened came after the fact, but in the twilight he remembered. He remembered Lucifer's initial surprise at Sam's counter-attack, and the fury that followed upon his recovery from said surprise. He remembered the moment when he started to crumble beneath Lucifer's renewed onslaught, and how in desperation he had begun pulling strength from any source he could find. He drained his own body nearly to its death. Bobby told him later that every living thing within a six foot radius of him died – grass, trees, birds, insects – all sucked dry of their life force.

He moaned in his sleep, recalling the hand that fell on his shoulder, and his immediate thought:

_It's all right now. Everything is going to be all right._

Too late he realized what was happening.

_Dean!_

"_Hang on, Sammy. I'm right here with you."_

_NO! Run! Get away from me!_

He'd struggled to let go, to break the connection that was draining his brother's life away. It wouldn't be enough. There was no reason to make that sacrifice!

Then, suddenly, there was pain, and blood, and a surge of psychic energy so great Sam could barely control it. One part of his mind took that power and sent it cascading down upon Lucifer like a tsunami. Another part began to wail with grief and agony, knowing instinctively what had happened.

Ruby.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her step back, her knife dripping blood. He felt the hand slip from his shoulder. A body fell heavy against him on its way to the ground.

A body – no - not dead yet, but dying and every drop of blood that spilled into the earth continued to fuel Sam's war machine.

"_NO!"_

There's power in death, in sacrifice. Lucifer made one final push. In blind panic, Sam reached for the last of what Dean could give him and threw it, spear-like, into the maelstrom going on inside his own head.

"_Go back to Hell you son-of-a-bitch!"_

Lucifer was forced to leave the field of battle, defeated by love and sacrifice. Sam paid the price of victory. His mind, body and soul were damaged beyond repair, but the most valuable thing he'd lost lay cold and lifeless in a pool of blood at his feet.

"DEAN!"


	2. Heaven Says Hello

Sam woke with a gasp, sitting up with a knife in his hand and the smell of whiskey on his breath. The headache was merciless, blinding. He couldn't see, couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stand either and fell heavily to his knees on the floor when he tried to leave the sofa. He'd slept too long, been without his meds for too long. His fucked up synapses began misfiring. Some stopped firing all together. His mind lipped sideways, sending conflicting information to nerves and muscles throughout his body.

It took several minutes for the seizure to come to an end. He knelt beside the sofa, elbows on the cushions, head bowed as if in prayer, but no prayers came from his lips, only heaving gasps as he struggled to catch his breath. He wiped his nose with a shaking hand, leaving a smear of blood across his knuckles. The metallic smell of it sickened him and he rose to stumble to the bathroom, retching.

When he was done he dry swallowed the pill he'd missed taking but washed the taste of puke out of his mouth with more whiskey. He grimaced at the sight of daylight creeping in through the windows. It was past time for him to get back on the road.

Bobby called it a fuse. The doctors called it a stroke brought on by the bursting of a cerebral aneurysm. They couldn't understand why he wasn't dead and were mystified by some of the images their tests spit back at them. Your average human used ten percent of their brain. Thanks to Azazel, Sam used much more – but at the same time, had much more that could go wrong. His CAT scan lit up like a Christmas tree. It was impossible to tell what was actually damaged and what simply shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Fuse, aneurysm - same difference, same effect. Sam had gone more than a little wonky afterward.

"But hey, Lucifer's back in Hell," he whispered grimly.

"And we'd like to keep it that way."

Sam grabbed a shotgun from the table and turned around quickly – instantly regretting it as a wave of vertigo hit him hard. His vision skewed. He shook his head and refocused on the guy he had failed to notice before, the guy sitting nonchalantly in front of the dying embers of Sam's fire. Cocking the gun, he cautiously crept toward his unwanted visitor. It was no demon, he would have sensed it, but it wasn't human either.

It looked human. Its shell was human – a young man, a teenager, with light brown hair, high cheekbones and large, slightly luminous green eyes. He was good-looking, almost too good-looking, like he'd stepped off the pages of GQ magazine. He gave Sam the once over and a grim smile.

"Sam. You look like shit."

Sam growled. "Yeah, give me another reason to shoot you. Who are you? What do you want?"

"You can shoot me, but it would be a shame to put holes in this body. It used to be his bread and butter when he was a child star, betrayed him when he grew up and wasn't pudgy and cute anymore. Luckily he turned to religion instead of drugs and porn." The guy shrugged. "Personally I think this kid could use some drugs and porn, but then he probably would have told me to kiss his ass when I asked to borrow his meat."

"What?" Sam barely followed this discourse, and might have had trouble even if his brain wasn't damaged. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Vessel." Guy stabbed a finger at his own chest. "This isn't really me."

"I got that part. I know what possession looks like."

"I'm not a demon."

"I got that too." Sam slowly lowered the hammer back down on the gun, and then lowered the gun itself. "But that leaves only a half a dozen other things that can take over a body."

"Castiel sent me."

This brought Sam up short.

Castiel, the angel Castiel. He'd saved Dean from Hell once, brought him back. Sam had a bone to pick with him, but all the angels had vanished from Earth as soon as Hell opened up and Lucifer stepped free. Sam hadn't seen him, or any of God's warriors, for years. Had he been the man he was before he actually_ met _an angel he might prayed for another miracle, but Sam was in no way that person anymore and he'd done more cursing than praying. He knew Dean wasn't coming back this time, but was his brother in Hell again, or someplace else? That's all Sam wanted to know. It was all he _needed_ to know. So far the angel, and the answer, had eluded him.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "What does he want?"

The answer was blunt. "Ruby."

With a snort, Sam moved into the living room and settled himself down in the chair where he'd bound the demon. "And so naturally you came to ask me where she is, as if I know."

"Do you?"

The angel gave him an intense stare. Sam met it with one of his own and answered the question.

"No, and if I did, you wouldn't need to be here because I would have already sent the bitch back to Hell." Setting the gun across his knees, Sam leaned forward in the chair. "She won't be found unless she wants to be found, and I have better things to do than waste my time looking for her."

The fire hissed and popped as a log fell deeper into the flames. Rising, the so-called-angel moved to the hearth and picked up a poker. "That's a problem," he said quietly, putting on another log, rebuilding the fire that had nearly gone out while Sam slept.

"It's a problem for you maybe. Leave me out of it. I've got enough on my plate, and the last time I got between Heaven and Hell it didn't end well." Sam rubbed his temple. Pain stabbed at him from someplace behind his eyes. He shot a glare at the angel who now stood as if warming himself in front of the fire. "Give her my regards when you kill her."

The angel turned away from the hearth, and for a brief moment Sam could see the lazy stretch of shadowy wings arcing out from his shoulders; reminiscent of a bird sunning itself on a warm summer day. Sam had every reason to hate an angel of God as much as he did a demon, but despite this deep-rooted bitterness he couldn't help but admire the air of serenity that seemed to accompany them. Soldiers of God, they existed without all the baggage carried around by man, baggage that often ended up dragging humans down to Hell.

Sam had a lot of baggage and the more time passed, the more convinced he became of where he would spend eternity.

"You don't want revenge?" the angel asked. "She murdered your brother."

"Revenge is overrated," Sam murmured. "Anti-climactic. People get their revenge and find out it doesn't stop the pain. Why do you think there are so many murder suicides?" He raised his head. "And I doubt revenge is Castiel's motivation. Why does he want Ruby?"

"Castiel gives orders. I obey orders. I don't ask and he doesn't tell."

"You know," Sam said abruptly, rising to his feet. "If you don't mind, I'm right in the middle of something. I was due in Idaho hours ago and..."

"If you're talking about the rift I already took care of that." As he spoke, the angel approached. He was taller than he first appeared, and although still shorter than Sam, he seemed somehow larger. His eyes were a dark shade of green, but deep within them a fire smoldered. They studied Sam carefully. "What has made you so bitter, Sam? This is more than just grief."

Sam's first instinct was to turn away, but he couldn't, held in the angel's gaze. It pissed him off, this angelic mojo. His lip curled. "Where do I start? Look, like I said, I don't want to have anything to do with you, Ruby, or whatever bullshit God's got cooking this time."

The angel's eyes flickered sideways. He focused on a point just beyond Sam's shoulder – the table. Sam turned as he pushed past to investigate the items laid out there, picking up each prescription bottle one by one by one. Annoyed at the additional intrusion into his privacy, Sam crossed over to where his unwanted visitor stood and plucked the last bottle out of his hand. The angel turned to look at him, frowning.

"You're sick?"

"No, I'm dying." Sam slammed the bottle down on the table. "Do you mind?"

Head cocked, the angel continued to stare at him. Sam shifted his weight uneasily, and began putting his things away into the duffel. He tried to ignore the other's presence but heard, very softly, the angel whisper to himself:

"Cas, you son-of-a-bitch."

Sam zipped the duffel. "Didn't tell you that, did he?"

"No."

"Probably didn't tell you he and his buddies cut and run when it got bad either. The angels, God's _warriors_ left only a handful of humans to stop Lucifer."

"They were ordered..."

"Then God is a damn coward!" Sam raged, surging forward to get in the angel's face. "And I won't do him any favors. My brother died..."

He stopped, stumbling backward a step as his vision skittered off track and flashed dark and light, then dark again. A hand steadied him, or tried to anyway. He shoved it away and sat down in one of the dining room chairs. The headache wrapped iron bands around his temples, growing tighter and tighter with every breath he took.

"They could have saved him," he gasped, attempted to shove the hand coming at him away again and failed. "Dammit! Don't touch m..."

Sam didn't know what it was like to live without pain anymore, dealing with it on some level or another every waking hour for the past five years, so when it suddenly ceased, he had a hard time understanding what happened. One moment his vision was gone and his head felt like it was being crushed in a vice, and in the next, nothing but pain-free clarity. He could see again, he could breathe easy again, and the utter exhaustion that had been pulling him down for so long, was miraculously gone.

"Don't get used to it," the angel said quietly. "It's only temporary." He shrugged and gave Sam a small, wry smile. "I'm your bargain basement variety angel. I call for lightning and I get static cling. I call for healing, and I'm handed a box of Hello Kitty Band-Aids."

"What did you do?"

"Pain block. It'll wear off in about twenty minutes." Putting his hands on the back of another chair, the angel stood at the table opposite where Sam sat. "About your brother..."

Pain of a different sort stabbed Sam in the gut. "I don't want to talk about my brother. I don't want to _think_ about my brother."

Once again he was fixed with an intense stare, and felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He knew better than to believe the angel could know what he was thinking but it didn't stop him from wondering just what the creature saw. There was sorrow in the angel's expression. Sam also knew better than to assume what he saw was what the angel truly felt. They could be cold – they were cold – obedient, and for as long as they were dedicated to God, without free will. In that way they could sometimes be worse than demons.

"Why?" the angel asked softly.

Sam turned his head. "None of your damn business."

_Just go_, he thought viciously. _Go away. Leave me alone_. _I don't need any of your sanctimonious bullshit. I don't need your sympathy._

"I'm sorry, Sammy."

Infuriated at hearing Dean's pet name coming from a creature he abhorred, Sam opened his eyes and surged from his chair. He had never attempted to use his abilities on an angel before, but he figured at this point he had nothing to lose and he wanted the angel gone.

He didn't have to go that far. The angel had gone on his own accord.

* * *

><p>The summons was probably expected. It was answered almost immediately.<p>

Out upon a long stretch of Kansas prairie, empty save for the birds and the buffalo as it might have been hundreds of years earlier, the angel Castiel came forth in all his glory. There was no one there to see besides a young man sitting cross-legged upon the hood of a vintage car. The car was a Camaro, silver, fast and sleek, with an ivory statue of the Virgin Mary on the dash and a rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror.

"You stole a car," Castiel said flatly, obviously disapproving.

At the moment Dean didn't give a shit about what Castiel thought. "Borrowed."

"Dean...

"Why didn't you tell me about Sam?"

"What about Sam?"

Unfolding his legs, Dean slid from the hood of the car and faced his superior. He couldn't actually see Castiel, only a bright aura of light, but his human host's eyes were unable to accommodate more than that. It was enough that they were spared the fate of most human senses when confronted with the true form of an angel.

"Don't play dumb with me, Cas. He's sick, dying, and you knew it."

"I told you not to go to him."

"He's my brother!"

"He _was_ your brother."

The prairie grew silent. Dean slumped back against the car.

"He's going to Hell isn't he?"

Castiel was non-committal. "It's not my call, Dean. My best guess would be yes, but who am I to say? It is our lord who will make the final judgment and he..."

"Just shut up with the mysterious ways crap," Dean murmured, swinging open the Camaro's door and slipping inside. "You know I can't let that happen."

"So you would disobey God to save Sam's soul?"

Dean slammed the car door shut. "Yeah, and at the very least he'd have some company in the Pit." He shook his head and gave up a wry smile. "Come on, Cas, you know me, I'm not that stupid."

"You do have a penchant for getting your way without direct disobedience," Castiel admitted. "Just don't abandon your assignment, Dean. Ruby must be found."

"Yeah, about that, you want to tell me why we're suddenly so interested in Ruby?"

"No."

"Figured."

The light flickered in what Dean recognized was good humor. "You want to tell me why you're driving a car?"

Dean grinned as he turned the key and gunned the Camaro's big engine. "I'm afraid to fly."

* * *

><p>The church in Arco was a ruin, a jumbled mass of charred wooden beams and scorched piles of broken bricks. It had burnt down back in the sixties and had never been rebuilt. No one knew it protected a secret, a place worn thin in the fabric of time and space that separated Earth and Hell. The demons had chipped away at it for a long time before they managed to open a rift. More than the one Sam dispatched had escaped from it before it was sealed. Wasn't that just peachy; he had more work to do then.<p>

"So," a voice chided softly. "You didn't believe me."

Sam didn't even turn around. "Angels can lie."

"Yeah, I'm real aware of that."

There was an edge to the angel's tone that caused Sam to look up at him. Annoyingly the sanctimonious creature was sitting on the Impala like a giant hood ornament, watching Sam with that odd, unblinking gaze he'd affected before.

"Sins of omission," he continued. "Depending on just what was omitted, God tends to look the other way on that one. I gave Cas some shit for it."

"His omission regarding my health – or, as the case may be, lack thereof?"

"Yeah."

"Bully for you," Sam grunted, picking his way back toward the Chevy. "You know, I told you before I have no idea where Ruby is and I want no part of the latest divine plan. Why are you here?"

"I need help."

"Get off the car."

"Sam, look. We can limit your involvement to helping me find Ruby. Once we locate her, you can be on your way to wherever and whatever. Okay? Just work with me on this. I'm a junior exec just trying to make my way up the ladder. I don't have any divine plan at my back – that I know of anyway – so cut me some slack."

"Help you up the ladder. That's my incentive?"

"You do realize you need all the Brownie points that you can get, don't you?"

Sam paused with his hand on the Impala's door handle. His head was pounding. The headache had come back with a vengeance after the angel's pain blocking trick wore off halfway to Idaho. He felt tired and ill, but then, that was normal.

"I'd guessed," he said softly. He leaned against the car, laying crossed arms upon the roof. "There are worse things."

"Worse than Hell?" The angel's soft snort of derision was not quite a laugh, but then the grim look on his face did not warrant laughter. "No, Sam. There isn't."

"Debatable. At least I'll have good company."

"There is no good company in Heh…ell." Cocking his head slightly, the angel appeared puzzled, then, as realization dawned, he appeared shocked. "Dean? You think Dean is in Hell?"

Sam didn't respond.

"So all this time you thought…Sam…" The angel leaned his elbows upon his knees, his expression full of sorrow. "Why did you assume he wasn't saved? Why would God go to all the trouble of yanking his ass out of Hell only to throw him back after it was all said and done? His sacrifice wasn't just for you this time. That meant something don't you think?"

Sam bowed his head. He hadn't been there, not in the very end, when it was all over and Dean lay dying with Ruby's knife in his back. Sam had been laid out unconscious, half dead himself. It had been Bobby who filled him in on what happened afterward. Dean's last words had been so typical, so like those Sam had heard countless times before, he had totally dismissed them.

"_Tell Sammy it'll be all right. I promise...we'll be all right."_

Despite his best efforts Dean couldn't always make everything all right. Sam hadn't believed things would be all right, not when his faith had become so jaded. After the betrayal of both Ruby and the angels, why should he have believed his all-too-fallible brother?

_Because when had Dean ever let __you__ down before? _

Eyes burning, Sam found himself unable to speak. He pushed away from the car and headed back toward the ruins of the church. Very little of it still stood, but in the midst of the wreckage one heavy oak pew remained, as well as the wall behind the altar. Where once there had been a large stained-glass window there was now just an empty round hole. His heart felt like that anymore. It was empty. All his hopes and dreams had been shattered, just like the beautiful colored glass.

"I don't know," he said finally, "if that makes me feel better, or worse."

"Hell corrupts even the gentlest soul, warps love into hate. You should know that, Sam. If Dean were with you in Hell, who do you think would be wielding the knife that strips your skin from your body, and cuts your heart from your chest? Who do you think would be torturing _him_?"

The angel's voice came from somewhere in front of him. Sam noted he had come to stand where the altar had once been, right below the open window, where he used the waning afternoon light to dramatic effect. Once again reality slightly overlapped the illusion, surrounding the human figure with a halo of light, picking out the arc of feathered wings over each shoulder, casting a magnificent shadow across the cracked wall. Sam wondered if he did it on purpose, or if it were some carry-over from the actor turned vessel that he wore. Cas had never been such a ham.

"I don't want to go to Hell."

"Then help me find Ruby."

Sam laughed bitterly. "And that will save me?"

This time it was the angel who looked away, and the light around him seemed to dim. Only a young man stood there now, a young man surrounded by the ruins of a small, nondescript building. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and furrowed his brows. He sighed, and spoke in a nearly inaudible voice.

"I can't make any promises."

"I thought as much." Rising, Sam went back to the car, the angel following in his wake. "Fine, whatever, I'll help you find Ruby," he said, "if you do something for me."

"Anything - well almost anything. Bargain basement variety angel, remember?"

Sam turned around and brought them both to an abrupt halt. "Can you deliver a message?"

The angel's lips parted, releasing a little "huff" of breath. His green eyes were searching, his expression apprehensive. "To your brother?"

"Yeah. Tell him..."

What? I miss you? I'm sorry? Thank you? There was so much Sam could say, so much he wanted to say, _needed _to say, and yet he had to admit even if Dean were standing right in front of him he probably wouldn't be able to say anything at all. Dean hadn't been much for sentimentality – at least out loud sentimentality. Admitting he felt anything other than casual indifference had always been difficult for him. It didn't really matter though because they both knew instinctively what the other was feeling at any given moment. Sam knew his brother had been far more sensitive than anyone would have given him credit for, and sadly, more than once in their past it had been used against him with agonizing results.

"Never mind," Sam muttered. "Forget it. Just get in the car."


	3. Finding Ruby

The Impala rolled into Singer's Salvage not long after the sun rose. Despite a stop at a motel for some shut-eye, Sam's head was still pounding, and sensation had not yet returned to an arm he found paralyzed upon waking. His angelic visitor had taken his leave while Sam slept. Sam was relieved that the kid had not yet returned.

He hadn't seen Bobby in person for over a year. The old man was a little grayer, a little thinner, and a lot more wizened than he'd been a year earlier. There was the slightest of tremors in his hands, hands with joints swollen by arthritis, but he still had a Hunter's strong presence and a sharp, alert look in his eyes. Age was quickly catching up with Bobby Singer, but he wasn't succumbing to it without a fight.

Their greeting was subdued, a hard embrace and a silent acknowledgment of the passing of time - a nod and a cursory visual assessment. Sam was actually pleased to see Bobby doing so well. Bobby's conclusion wasn't nearly so positive. The two of them sat down at Bobby's kitchen table and shared hot coffee.

Bobby poured. Sam raised the cup with his left hand - something he knew didn't escape the older Hunter's attention.

"You look peaked."

Sam smiled wryly. "Subtle."

Bobby shrugged. "Figured since I haven't seen you for a while it'd be better than starting out '_you look like death warmed over.'_" Bobby slowly stirred sugar into his coffee. "How bad is it, Sam?"

"I'm okay."

"Like hell you are." His spoon clinked on the table as Bobby set it down and regarded Sam with a hard stare. "Talk to me, boy."

With a sigh, Sam shook his head. He left the coffee black. It was bitter, but hot, and drove away some of the weariness. He'd been advised against coffee just as he'd been advised against alcohol. He thought quitting it would make very little difference in the larger scheme of things.

"Sam..." Bobby prompted.

"Headaches are pretty bad."

"And you're still ganking demons." Tapping one temple, Bobby nodded. "With that hocus pocus you do, aren't you? Don't lie to me either. I'm not totally out of the loop these days."

"Yeah, it comes in handy."

"It's going to kill you, Sam!"

_It already has, Bobby._

"Yeah, I know," Sam admitted softly. "But it'll do that whether I use my abilities or not. If I can take a few more demons with me..." He snorted. "Maybe I can win enough Brownie points to keep myself out of the Pit."

"You think so?" Bobby stood up and refilled both their mugs. "Last I heard the man upstairs was dead set against you tappin' into that well."

"It wasn't any heavenly host who put Lucifer back in prison," Sam replied coolly. "God should be grateful I don't follow orders." He sipped his coffee. "Ironically, that's why I'm here."

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I've had a visitor," Sam said. "An angel has asked me to help him locate Ruby."

"And you said?"

"Sure, why not, whatever."

Bobby rubbed his chin in thought. "Ruby. _The_ Ruby? This angel say why?"

"He says he doesn't know, but whatever it is, it probably isn't good. No angel is going to come mucking around down here again unless something big is going down." With a sigh, Sam closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Bobby, the last thing I want to do is get involved with this stuff again, but he said..."

"Said what?" Bobby prompted, when Sam didn't finish.

"He said," Sam whispered. "That Dean didn't go back to Hell."

Bobby gazed at him sympathetically. From anyone else the look might have made Sam angry. He didn't want anyone's pity. Bobby didn't give pity, but he did provide understanding and support.

"So you _are_ trying to buy yourself a ticket to paradise."

Sam tapped his fingers on the table. "I'm just trying to do the right thing, like I always have, and if it saves my ass from the fire, that's just icing." Raising his hand, he rubbed his forehead again where the headache was teaming up with the coffee to make him nauseous. A cold sweat broke out down his back only partially due to his physical illness. He laughed softly, without much humor. "I know how Dean felt, you know, when his contract came due. I'm running out of time, Bobby."

There was a brief, awkward silence in which Bobby turned away. Sam caught the glitter of tears, and heard the roughness in his old friend's voice. "So. What do you want me to do?"

"I need your help to scry for her."

"We've tried that before, Sam. She's real good at covering her tracks."

"And my tracking skills have improved since the last time." Sam stood up slowly so Bobby wouldn't see his unsteadiness. "This time I'll find her."

In the years since the final battle with Lilith and Lucifer, Sam had adopted a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude regarding his abilities. They were going to kill him whether he used them or not, so he decided to take advantage of the edge they gave him on the job. During his time laid up in the hospital, and later at Bobby's during the rest of his recovery, he'd done a lot of reading. If there were any sort of certification to be earned in witchcraft, Sam had himself a master's degree. He stopped short of calling himself a warlock.

"Let's start small," Bobby said as he spread a map of North America across the floor. "My ol' pop always said that if something ain't workin' fix the easiest thing first."

"You don't think she may have gone out of the country?" Sam brought over the tripod and centered its pendulum over the map.

"Mebee. Didn't you say she started out human back in Europe?"

"Oxford." Sam looked down at the map. "But you're right, let's start a little closer to home."

"Is Ruby her true name?" Bobby stepped back and leaned against his desk rubbing his hands. "That may be why it hasn't worked before, because she never gave us her real name."

"It won't matter this time."

In the kitchen Sam found most of the components he needed, including cloves and fennel, and a silver bowl. An inquiry yielded the hibiscus and meadowsweet tucked away in the upstairs bathroom cupboard. He found jasmine incense in a jar high upon one of the bookshelves above the fireplace. Bobby watched him carefully, his frown deepening with every item Sam gathered.

"This is some serious shit, Sam."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"That's bull. I know you ain't that desperate to find Ruby."

Sam paused. "Maybe I should be," he said quietly, "for Dean."

"You were never so gung-ho about vengeance before," Bobby replied, just as softly. "You think that's what this angel wants?"

"I don't know." Sam began mixing the dried herbs in the bottom of the bowl. He handed off the incense to Bobby, who lit it. The sweet perfume of jasmine began to fill the room. "But to find out, we'll have to find Ruby first."

Drawing a deep breath, Sam sat down on the rug beside the map. He lit another match and dropped it into the bowl of herbs. The caught fire immediately, burning hot and bright, adding a bittersweet scent to that of the jasmine. Sam inhaled once more and closed his eyes. He heard Bobby's desk chair squeak as the old man sat down to watch. A moment later he began to chant and beneath his whispered words he heard the creak of the wooden tripod as the pendulum began to swing.

The words were not Latin, but Hindu, a more ancient version of the spell Bobby used. It was not as diluted by time as Bobby's. The words were rich and powerful, made more so by the energy Sam was able to pour into them. He pictured Ruby in his mind and set the spell to work.

Unfortunately, thinking of Ruby brought back memories he had tried hard to forget, like the sight of her standing naked before a window, her sleek form illuminated by the light coming in from a streetlamp, framed by the darkness inside the room. He remembered how her borrowed body felt against his own, could taste the mint on her tongue, mint she used to disguise the sulfur scent that often lingered on her breath. He could taste that too. It was bitter, a poignant reminder of his indiscretion.

The session didn't last long. Sam came out of it blinded with pain. If Bobby's hand hadn't been on his shoulder he might have fallen over. He looked up at Bobby feeling weak and ill, and struggling not to let it show.

"She's not here in the States." Sam pushed the bowl away and leaned over, putting his forehead to the worn carpet. His voice was muffled as he added, "She's close though, Canada maybe?"

"You want to rest first? Sam you better..."

"No." Sam sat up. "No. I'll be okay. Let's keep going. You got a map of South America? We'll check down there while we're at it, just in case."

A new map was produced, and Sam repeated the spell using a fresh batch of herbs. He found the thread he had felt before and followed it, pouring more and more energy into the spell as he continued to recite. Ruby's defenses tried to dissuade him, throw him onto a false trail, but Sam picked up the true path again almost immediately. He nearly lost her once as a burst of pain behind his eyes caused him to falter. Gritting his teeth he persevered, working through the pain as he always seemed to have to do anymore.

Finally he felt his quest come to an end. He forced his eyes open. The pendulum had stopped swinging.

Toronto. Ruby was in Toronto.

The first syllable was all Sam could get out before a seizure grabbed him by the collar and shook him until the lights went out.

* * *

><p>Sam dreamed Dean was alive. He was feeling badly, lying on the sofa at Bobby's, with Dean hovering over him, fussing like a mother hen, just like he had when Sam was a little kid.<p>

_Idiot,_ Dean said._ I never meant for you to do this!_

_Do what?_

_You know what, Sammy! _

_No. I don't. Dean? _

"Dean!"

Sam sat up, or tried to anyway. A hand pushed him back down, and at first he thought his dream had come true, that his brother was there beside him. Refocusing, he realized it wasn't Dean, but the angel. For the first time Sam noticed the resemblance between his brother the angel's vessel. There were differences of course, but the kid's coloring and his basic boy-next-door, all American look was the same. Dean had been a handsome man, might have been even better looking if life hadn't been so hard on him. The actor-turned-angel's face was flawless, his youth untainted by hardship. There were no scars on him – either inside, or out.

"Lay down," the angel commanded. "I already told you my healing mojo is next to nothing. You keep squirming around you'll undo what I _could_ fix."

"What happened?" Sam asked, falling back into the pillows. He was indeed lying on Bobby's sofa, just like in his dream, only it wasn't Dean hovering at his side, but a prick of an angel. "What did you do?"

The angel looked annoyed and didn't answer either question. "I thought you only used your abilities to gank demons."

Sam grunted. "You thought wrong."

"If I'da known you were going to do this, I would never have gotten you involved, Sam!"

"Well I'm sorry I didn't tell you and then maybe I_ wouldn't_ be involved. I never _wanted_ to be involved in the first place." Shoving aside another attempt to keep him down, Sam sat up with a groan. He actually felt a little better than he had before he began the spellwork, but anymore, feeling better was relative. The ever-present headache was throbbing in his temples. "Ruby's in Toronto."

"Canada?"

"No, Einstein, Brazil. What do you think?"

"I think maybe you're an asshole, that's what I think."

"It takes one to know one." Rising slightly unsteadily, Sam waved off help from Bobby as he made his way into the kitchen. There was still coffee in the pot. He poured himself a cup and drank the tepid brew. It was bitter. "Suits my mood," he murmured.

"I'll go, by myself," the angel said. He'd followed Sam into the kitchen. "That's it. You're done."

Sam turned around to face him. "Like hell. You got me into this. I'm not backing out now."

"I'm not going to watch you kill yourself because of my stup..." Abruptly, the angel broke off, inhaled a deep breath, held it, and let it out before continuing in a more subdued tone. "You did what I asked. You got me the information I needed. I can handle this on my own from here."

"Do you have a name?" Sam asked. It suddenly dawned on him that it hadn't been given. Castiel had always been forthright with his name, and so had every other angel he'd ever met. This one hadn't said, and Sam hadn't cared enough to ask. He wondered why he cared now.

Apparently, so did the angel. "Why do you want to know? So you can curse it?"

Sam sipped his coffee. "Among other things."

The angel glared, which Sam found almost laughable in such a pretty-boy face. "Fine. My name is Barre."

"Bar? What kind of name is that?"

"B...a...double r...e. Barre. First name, Martin."

Until this point Bobby had been observing the exchange in silence, which didn't surprise Sam much. Bobby didn't say anything unless there was something important to say. If Sam wanted to verbally duke it out with an angel of the lord, far be it from Bobby to interfere. At this name, however, he looked up from where he'd been leaning in the kitchen doorway. His eyes narrowed as he studied the angel quite carefully.

"Martin Barre, the lead guitarist for Jethro Tull?"

"Uh…who?"

"That's an alias if I ever heard one," Bobby grunted. He examined the angel carefully. "So the question is," he added softly, "Why does an angel need an alias?"

The angel frowned. "So sasquatch here doesn't try anything. You know there is power in a name, Bobby. Didn't you once help Dean summon Castiel?"

Bobby shrugged. "Point taken," he said quietly, but did not take his eyes off the angel.

"I'm not going to try anything," Sam said sarcastically, "unless it's to send your ass back to Heaven, but I need something to call you."

"Fine, call me Evan. The kid here, that's his name. It's as good as any. But you won't need it. You got me the information I need, so I'll just take it from here." His voice lowered. An afterthought was murmured under his breath. "Cas was right. I shouldn't have dragged you back in."

Sam heard him. "Then why did you?" he demanded. "Is Heaven not content to let me die in peace? Huh? Why did you drag me into this?"

"I needed to find Ruby."

"Bullshit. That's not all it is."

"I don't know, okay? Temporary insanity maybe?"

From behind Sam, Bobby interrupted quietly. "Or maybe you just missed him."

Sam threw a glance back over his shoulder. "What?"

The angel snorted softly. "I...Sam? Sam!"

It was hard, Sam realized, to hide the fact that your knees have suddenly buckled beneath you, especially when you gasp and grab for the nearest solid object. He managed to grab the edge of the counter with one hand, the right. His left hand flailed briefly before his celestial visitor took hold of him, wrapping his arm around Sam's shoulders to take the brunt of his weight. The room was spinning. Sam listed heavily to port. Somehow he made it to a chair.

A vision nailed him, but this was no ordinary vision. It was not filled with portent. It did not reveal anything Sam didn't already know. He'd made an enemy, a dark, powerful enemy who had the ability to influence his followers regardless of his imprisonment, and torment those who dared work against him even from the depths of Hell. It wasn't often, for Lucifer's power had been greatly diminished, but from time to time he liked to remind Sam he was still in the game.

His reminders came in these visions, like Bin Laden video messages, relaying Lucifer's plans for the man who had thwarted his escape. Sam saw, with clinical detail, what would be in store for him after his death. He heard his own screams rising to join those of the other tortured souls in Hell. He felt the agony as inch by inch his skin was peeled from his flesh and every bone in his body was shattered one by one. There was no escape from it. The blissful release found in unconsciousness was unknown in Hell. The pain just went on and on and on and on...

The visions were just visions, but the pain was very real. It forced him out of the chair to lie upon the scuffed and dirty floor of Bobby's kitchen, where he curled into a tight, fetal ball and began screaming. It was bad, this one. He hadn't had one in months. Lucifer had built up a lot of energy, and sent Sam a particularly nasty message.

In the vision Sam looks up at his torturer and sees that the angel's words were true. He recognizes the man standing over him and he feels pain of a different sort. His lips jerk in denial, but it's true - Dean holds the knife, his face twisted in a snarl that renders him almost unrecognizable.

"_Dean? No. Please..."_

Blood stained fingers grasp him by the jaw, forcing his mouth open. A pair of tongs clamp down on his tongue, wrenching it out from between his teeth. He can no longer speak as his brother leans in to stare him in the face.

"_I've wanted to shut you up for a very long time." _Dean laughs. His eyes go black as the knife descends. "_You won't talk...but you can still scream."_

_No. The angel said...you aren't here! You're not in Hell...Dean! No..._

"Nuuuhno! No. No! NO!"

"SAM!"

He's trapped in the vision. He can't get out of it, no more than he can free himself from the wickedly barbed hooks that hold his body down to the wooden rack. He can hear the angel and Bobby calling his name but he can't react. He's in Hell. They don't understand. He can't make them understand. His mouth is full of blood….

And then, suddenly, his senses are overwhelmed with a flash of brilliant white light. It forces his torturer to back away, to flee into the darkness. Sam's sight blurs as his eyes begin to water. He feels a hand descend to rest upon his shoulder. The touch burns. He arcs his body away from it, but it is unrelenting. A new torturer has come.

Sam blinks his vision clear and realizes this is no torturer. Within the light stands the figure of a man, but a man with outstretched wings, and eyes ablaze with light. The hand is gone from Sam's shoulder but has not left him entirely. It is held out to toward him with much urgency, urgency reflected in the painfully familiar voice. Sam looks up into the angel's face. The twisted countenance of his torturer is gone, replaced by a sad, gentle expression Sam knows by heart. He's seen it many times before throughout his life, from childhood to adulthood, whenever he was hurting the most.

"_Come on, Sammy. Take my hand. Everything will be all right now."_

With a gasp, Sam emerged from within his own mind, the vision shattered. He lay shivering on the floor, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. It took some effort for him to uncurl himself and sit up. Hands grasped his arms, and with their assistance he sat down in a chair at the table and sat there shivering, eyes downcast, still struggling to recover from what he'd been through.

He barely comprehended the sound of Bobby's voice as the old hunter addressed Sam's new BFF. Under different circumstances Sam might have found it funny to hear Bobby ordering an angel around like he had once done to Sam and Dean themselves.

"We need to talk. In private. Right now."


	4. Rock, Paper, Scissors

As soon as they were out of the kitchen, out of Sam's hearing range, Bobby whirled and laid into him.

"You son-of-a-bitch! Are you _trying_ to kill him?"

Dean flinched from the old man's fury. "Bobby, that wasn't me..."

"Maybe not directly, but you being here isn't helping him any." Bobby raged. "And why in the HELL don't you tell him who you are?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bull! Don't you dare lie to _me_ Dean Winchester. I'll fill your feathered ass full of lead." They were out in the hall several yards from the kitchen where Sam still sat trying to recover from whatever had gobsmacked him. Bobby lowered his voice. "Dean. He's your brother..."

Slowly, Dean shook his head, his shoulders slumping. Bobby had his number. There was no denying it anymore. "Things are different now."

"Why? Because you're dead? Because you're Heaven's bitch?"

"Yes, dammit!"

"Boy, that's crap and you know it." Bobby said quietly, subduing his anger with a swift intake of breath. "Family...that don't change. Why won't you tell him, Dean?"

Dean rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and back. "Besides the fact they don't want me to? That they didn't want me here in the first place?" He sighed again. "It'll hurt him worse, Bobby. Just like the last time. I came back, and he had to watch me die again. I can't do that to him anymore. I have to stay gone. I have to stay dead to him."

"Why _did_ you come back? What's this about Ruby?"

"I was sent to find her."

"Why?"

"I don't know. She's up to something. I'm guessing she's trying to spring Lucifer again. It sounds like she might have a new vessel for him."

"Damn…"

"Yeah, it's big if Heaven is getting involved again."

"So if she's got a new host for the devil, what does Sam have to do with it? Hasn't he done enough?"

"I just thought he would know where she is." Dean stepped back a pace in light of Bobby's irritated growl. "And you're right." He worried his lip between his teeth, a gesture not entirely his own, but more Evan's; funny how the body can retain its own memory. "I missed him." Hardening his features into a scowl, he added, "They didn't tell me he was sick."

"Yeah, damn right he's sick." Bobby relaxed visibly, the set of his shoulders going down as anger gave way to sadness. "Putting Ol' Scratch back in jail nearly killed him back then, and it's left some nasty scars. He tries to lie to me about it, tries to pretend he's all there, but he's never been the same since. He's not thinkin' right, he's starting to make mistakes, and I don't know how he even keeps standin'. It's catchin' up to him, Dean, and catchin' up quick." Tears filled their old friend's eyes. "Every time I see him he's lost more ground. He's runnin' out of road, and when that happens..."

"I don't know if I can save him, Bobby." Dean said softly, morosely. "And I'm afraid for him."

"You're an angel – which, by the way, is actually the funniest damn thing I've heard in a long time - don't you have any pull up there?"

Dean gave him a wry look. "Me? What do you think? Martyrdom got me in, but it doesn't change who I am. They'd as soon chuck me back in the Pit than give _me_ any clout. I've spent the last..." He attempted some quick calculations to account for the skewing of time between the plane on which he normally existed and Earth's, and then finally gave up "A really long time in valet parking. Centuries."

"What?"

"Try Wal-Mart door greeter. Souls come up, I hand them a brochure and point them toward the Pearly Gates," Dean shrugged. "more or less. I'm a bottom feeder, and there doesn't seem to be a promotion in my future either. The higher ups aren't keen on the idea of giving me any more power than they have to."

Bobby took off his cap and scratched his head. "What about Castiel?"

"Cas, he's the angelic equivalent to middle management, not a plum assignment either. Best he can do is keep me from screwing up bad enough to get my ass canned. He got me this job only because it involves Ruby, why I don't know, and I was hoping – maybe – if he helped me Sam would get...a reprieve?" Dean's voice broke. "I can't let him go to Hell, Bobby. I just can't do that, but I don't know how to stop it."

After a long pause, Bobby let out a sigh. "You should still tell him the truth, Dean."

Dean looked back over his shoulder to where Sam sat, head in hands, at the kitchen table. "I can't, not yet." He closed his eyes over the tears. "I don't want him to get his hopes up."

* * *

><p>Sam's progress toward Toronto was slow, as travel always was these days. He simply didn't trust himself to drive very far for very long. There was too much stacked against him in favor of losing control at the wheel and dying in a fiery crash. He figured his death was going to be fiery and his afterlife too, but why should he tempt fate and go out before his time?<p>

_Besides, wherever Dean is, wherever I go, he'll hunt me down and make me pay a hefty price for wrecking his car. _

The thought made him smile. Long after Dean's death, when it became clear there wouldn't be another miraculous resurrection, Sam had gone through his brother's things. In Dean's wallet he had found a small piece of paper, folded in half, with his name written on it. Inside was a note:

"_Sammy, if you're reading this, I'm dead – again. I just want to say I'm sorry – and you damn well better take care of my car."_

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Sam whispered. "And yeah, I'm taking care of your car."

The Impala was running well, but not because of Sam's mechanical skills, which were decidedly limited. Bobby had hooked him up with a part-time Hunter, full-time mechanic in Missouri, Gil, who was an expert in all the quirks inherent to vintage automobiles. The guy's jaw had hit the ground when Sam pulled into his shop for the first time. Sam knew the Winchester name came with a reputation, but had no idea the car had a similar reputation. He hadn't said a word as Gil came up to the Chevy and circled it with nothing short of reverence, barely daring to touch the sleek black steel – which at the time had been nearly obscured by road dust.

"This," Gil said finally, somewhat breathlessly. "This isn't...this isn't_ The_ Impala is it?"

"It's _an _Impala," Sam had replied. "Nineteen..."

"It's a sixty-seven, V8, 4-door hardtop, Tuxedo Black." Gil still wasn't looking at Sam, just the car. "You're Sam Winchester."

"Uh...yeah - look, can you just..."

Sam didn't even finish before Gil's head had snapped up to finally attend to his human visitor. "You want _me_ to work on this car, _t__his_ car?"

Somewhat disgusted, Sam replied. "You are a mechanic aren't you?"

"Yes, but...this..." Gil gazed lovingly at the Impala. "It would be an honor."

That had been the first time Gil had worked on the car, but he continued to be in awe of it, and more than a little afraid of Sam, particularly after one nerve wracking week when the Impala seemed to have finally thrown in the towel. It steadfastly refused to start no matter what Gil did to it. Sam had been tired, sick, and cranky at the time and had reminded Gil that the car actually belonged to Sam's dead brother. If Dean's ghost even thought for a minute they'd killed his beloved Chevy, they'd both be in deep shit.

Needless to say, Gil got it running the very next day.

_When this trip is over she'll need some work done. She's past due for an oil change, and I think there may be a leak... _

"Assuming I survive long enough," he muttered, and not for the first time considered leaving the car to Gil. Bobby might be too tempted to scrap her for parts.

He tightened his grip on the Chevy's wheel. It was late, he'd been driving for hours, and there was still another hour to go before he hit the outskirts of Cedar Rapids where he'd stop for some rest. Back in the day he could have made it from Bobby's house in Sioux Falls to Chicago or beyond without stopping - but that was before he'd started screwing around with demonic powers and took on Satan himself in a psychic duel.

And for what? To save the world? Was it worth it to save a world already full of death, destruction, disease and famine? What difference would Hell on Earth make? Earth was Hell. Life was Hell. Maybe he should have let Lucifer purge the human blight off the face of the planet, let God start up again with a clean slate and maybe this time He would get it right.

Sam's stomach churned. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, and his medication was making his gut ache. Reaching for the glove box he found some antacid tablets and chewed a few as he drove. At the moment he was driving along a curving county road lined high on either side with corn stalks waiting for harvest. There was no moon in the overcast sky, making it seem as though a blanket had been thrown over the land. It made the route seem even darker; the walls of corn seem more solid. It was like traversing a maze.

_It's a maize maze. Shit, I am tired._

The corn opened up ahead, revealing a small access road, hardly more than a path, wherein the farmer could bring his equipment. Sam turned off into it, slipping far enough into the tunnel of corn so the car could not be seen from the road. With the lights off the black car was nearly invisible. Sam could rest for a while undisturbed.

He checked the time, and with a sip from a bottle of tepid water, washed down his usual meds plus more pain killer. Sleep wouldn't be hard to find, but he didn't want to spend too long napping when he should be driving. Once he got to Chicago he could rest properly. First, however, he had to _get_ to Chicago and in his current state he wasn't going to make it. With this in mind, he set his watch alarm for a half hour. He'd sleep off the meds, and then get going again.

Sam hoped he wouldn't dream.

In his dreams Dean was alive again, a theme common to both his conscious and unconscious dreaming lately. He found it disturbing – no, distressing – as it only served to irritate already raw wounds. Grief and loneliness were as much a part of Sam's life as his physical pain. Dreaming of Dean, just _thinking_ of Dean cut him to the bone. Sometimes he did wonder if Hell wouldn't be better, despite all he'd been told. Life now was no picnic.

This last vision Lucifer had tormented him was sticking in his craw too. Why would _Lucifer_ send him a vision of Dean as an angel? Why would Lucifer have him dream of salvation? The more Sam thought about it, the more troublesome the vision seemed. He had no doubt it had been Lucifer – he knew the Devil's touch far better than he wanted – but perhaps it wasn't Lucifer at the very end. Someone had interfered. Sam suspected a real angel, Evan.

His troubled thoughts didn't last long. A massive yawn almost split his head in two, and as he settled back in his seat, he could feel exhaustion dragging him down. Within minutes he was asleep, passing quickly through the painful twilight time and on into a deeper sleep.

A dream did come to him, a dream from out of the corn maze.

He's sitting in the car, but not behind the wheel. It's Dean's place, and Dean is in it, piloting the Impala down a long stretch of road through the Kansas prairie. Grass meets sky all along the horizon. Heat waves shimmer along the road ahead, creating the illusion of water in the distance – a mirage. The old Chevy has no air conditioner and despite the windows being rolled down the interior heat is sweltering. Sweat stains their t-shirts at their armpits and in the hollow of their chests.

"Is it really hot in Hell?" Sam asks.

Dean doesn't take his eyes off the road as he answers, "Yes. It's so hot a breath of air will scald your lungs and put blisters on your tongue."

They continue to drive. Sam slumps down in his seat, letting the air blow in through the window onto his face. The beads of sweat on his face dry in the wind, cooling him. Through heavy lidded eyes he watches his brother drive. Dean's idly tapping the steering wheel as he mouths the lyrics to a tune he has playing on the radio. Sam recognizes the call letters of the radio station. It's classic rock out of Topeka. He's heard the song before, but cannot place it.

It was a scene that had been played out many, many times before over the span of more than twenty years, the only difference being the man behind the wheel and Sam's position in the car. When he'd been young, and John still drove the Chevy, Sam had to sit in the back seat. It had been stifling hot, even with the windows down. Often Sam would lie down across the broad leather seat, his feet propped up on the windowsill, and a book open upon his chest. Where bare skin touched hot leather it stuck, and sometimes it got burned if the sun had been shining in too long on one spot. In the front seats John and Dean would talk "shop." It made Sam feel like an afterthought.

When John bought a big four-wheel drive pick-up he turned the Impala's keys over to Dean. The car was the only inheritance either of the boys would ever get, aside from the Hunting skills their father had instilled in them. Sam graduated to shotgun. He got to talk "shop." Sometimes he would sleep, drifting off to the sound of the Impala's big engine rumbling, the whoosh of the wind as she sped down the road, and the quiet sounds of Dean singing along to the radio.

"_I don't know, but I've been told, a big-legged woman ain't got no soul..."_

Sam jerked awake, sitting up so quickly his world momentarily went completely black and soundless. Gasping, he dug his hands into the dashboard and waited for the spell to pass. As sound began to bleed back into his consciousness the first thing he heard was the pounding of his own heart, followed by the familiar sounds of which he'd just been dreaming. The car was moving and Sam wasn't driving. A voice sang softly from the driver's seat.

Zeppelin. Just like the dream.

Only it wasn't Dean driving, but a boy just shy of manhood, a boy possessed by an angel. It was Evan.

"_Houses of the Holy,"_ Sam murmured. He blinked, rubbing at his eyes. It was daylight, midmorning. How long had he been asleep?

Evan stopped singing. "Sleeping Beauty wakes."

Sam shot the angel the bird and then ran his nose across his sleeve. Blearily he focused his eyes to see a streak of fresh blood among the stains already there. Some of the blood was his. A lot of it wasn't. He never wanted to be a Hunter, but he had to admit, he was a damn good one.

"What the hell are you doing?" he growled.

"Driving."

"I can see that. Why?" Sam grabbed for the water bottle. His mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. He could taste blood at the back of his throat. "I just stopped for a few minutes."

Evan reached over and switched off the radio. "Two reasons," he said, neatly steering around some unknown pile of roadkill in the Impala's path. The car straightened out under his hand, and surged forward as his foot pressed down on the accelerator once again. A faint smile crossed his lips. "I miss driving."

"Is that one?"

"One what?" The angel glanced over at Sam, his perfectly arched brows dipping together.

Sam grunted. "Reason."

"Huh? Oh! No. First reason – I thought you could use the rest."

"You could have just left me alone," Sam pointed out. "Not stolen my car."

"I haven't stolen it. How can I steal it when you're sitting in it?"

"Should we call it kidnapping then?"

"Stop being an ass," the angel said, clearly annoyed at Sam for poking holes in his happy.

"Stop beating around the bush and tell me why the hell you're driving my car."

"Don't you mean Dean's car?" Turning his head, Evan gave Sam a poignant stare. "That's the only reason why you keep it."

Sam lowered his eyes, toying with the now empty water bottle. "And what's wrong with that?"

Evan turned his attention back to the road. "Nothing," he said quietly, "nothing at all." He paused a moment before adding. "You've got demons on your ass. I was afraid they'd catch up while you were sleeping."

"I always have demons on my ass, that's nothing new," Sam grunted.

"They know I've come to you. They want to know what's going on."

"Hell, I want to know what's going on."

The angel sighed. "So do I."

Throwing up his hands, Sam leaned back heavily in his seat. "Terrific."

Evan nudged the Chevy to go a little faster. "Whether we actually know anything or not, they'll still try to make us talk."

"Us? Oh, right. I forgot. You're a bargain basement angel." Sam reached into the glove box and pulled out a flask. There was holy water in it. He tucked it into his jacket pocket. "How many are there?"

"Four."

"That's two to one odds." Sam shrugged. "We can take them."

Glancing quickly in the rear-view mirror, Evan nodded, but his expression was one of skepticism. "A fight has to be our last resort, Sam. If you're going with me to confront Ruby, you'll have to be at the top of your game."

"Good luck with that." Sam rubbed his forehead, wincing. "The top of my game came and went five years ago."

"And that's why we can't waste your strength."

"It's my strength to waste."

Evan rolled his eyes. "Damnit, Sam, make up your mind! Are you in this with me or not?"

Sam snorted. "There's not much left to make up, and yeah, you know, I am getting really sick and damn tired of sticking my neck out for you people and getting nothing but crap in return."

"Right, like we didn't tell you not to fuck around with demons."

"If I hadn't fucked around with Ruby you'd be Lucifer's boy-toy right now."

"You didn't have to go there. You could have found another way." Evan's expression hardened. Sam could tell he was getting annoyed – and didn't give shit.

"What other way? And why should it have been my responsibility in the first place?"

"You're a Hunter. It's your job."

"Don't give me that crap, don't you dare!" Suddenly infuriated at being jerked around by some piss-ant angel, Sam remembered why he hated them so much. "Me, and Dean, we did everything we were asked to do. We stopped the damn Apocalypse. We put Lucifer back in lock-up. What did that get us? My brother drowned in his own blood trying to save the world while God's soldiers turned tail and ran." Evan winced, and Sam twisted the knife. "Dean's dead, I'm dying, and just because of some Heavenly bureaucratic red-tape, I get to go to_ Hell _when I bite it. Never mind that I spent over a year in the hospital after frying my brain getting rid of Lucifer, and ever since then I've been mopping up every demon that dares show its black eyed face outside of the Pit. Where are the angels? Where _were_ the angels? Where were you when my mother sold my soul to a demon? Where were you when it turned me into a freak of nature in the first place? If anyone failed to do their job, it was you and your God! _You_ fucked it up, not me!" Sam ground his teeth together. "Stop the car."

"What?" Evan glanced over at him. "We can't…."

"I said STOP THE GODDAMN CAR!"

It wasn't Evan who obeyed, but the Impala herself, responding to Sam's psychic jab at her motor. She shuddered, missing on first one cylinder and then another, before the engine coughed and sputtered to a halt. The power steering shut down. Behind the wheel Evan wrestled her over to the berm where she gradually came to a complete stop. Sam immediately got out and rounded the hood to the driver's side door, which he threw open wide.

"Get out."

Had he hesitated, Sam would have thrown him out, but the angel quietly removed himself from the driver's seat. Sam got in and slammed the door. In seconds he had the engine running again and had peeled out from the gravel berm, speeding off down the road – back toward Sioux City – leaving Evan far behind in his wake. His anger had caused the headache to flare up even worse than before. His hands were shaking badly, his heart pounding in his chest, his breath coming in short, struggling gasps.

"Are you done throwing your tantrum?"

Sam flinched and nearly drove off the road. Whipping his head around, he saw the angel sitting in the passenger's seat. Evan's handsome face was set in a grim expression, his eyes cold. Clearly Sam had pissed him off.

"Get out before I throw you out," he said.

Evan snorted softly. "I doubt you could."

"Don't tempt me."

"Not a morning person, are you Sammy?"

"Don't." Sam grated. "Call. Me. Sammy."

"You'd prefer _asshole?_ Because that's how you're acting." When Sam didn't respond the angel continued, his next comment harkening back to Sam's outburst. "It used to be that doing the right thing was its own reward."

"It used to be that doing the right thing didn't always come back and bite me in the ass."

"You used to have faith."

Sam didn't answer for a moment. He let the silence hang. "It was misplaced," he said finally, bitterly. "The only thing you can really count on is yourself."

"What about family, Sam? Did Dean ever let you down?"

"Dean," Sam breathed, "no, he never let me down, but he was only human."

"He made mistakes."

"He did the best he could."

Evan sighed. "Yeah, I know, and it still wasn't enough."

Before Sam could ask him what he meant, something in the road ahead caught his eye. A line of people, seven in all, stood in a line stretching from one side of the road to the other, effectively blocking the Impala's passage. All of them stood there with one arm outstretched, and Sam knew if he didn't stop the car, the car would be stopped for him.

"I thought you said there were only four," he said quietly.

The angel cursed softly. "They must have picked up some new recruits."

A few yards out from the row of demons Sam hit the brakes. Pulling off onto the gravel berm, he stopped the car and turned off the engine. Pocketing the keys, he got out. Evan followed. One of the demons, a young woman eerily reminiscent of the last woman Lilith had possessed before Sam killed her, stepped forward to meet them.

"Well, well, well," she said. "Hello, Sam, fancy meeting you here in the middle of nowhere."

One of the abilities Sam had honed over the years was the ability to identify demons no matter what meat they wore. His eyes moved over the line, carefully studying them. He knew only one - the woman who spoke to him.

"Medea," he snarled. "I didn't think you'd crawl out again so soon. Enjoy your vacation? Hot enough for you?"

She chuckled. "I hear things are getting a little hot up here." With a little nod she acknowledged Evan's presence. "The featherheads are back. What game are you playing now, huh?"

"Checkers," Evan replied, his voice and eyes gone chilly cold. "What's it to you, bitch?"

Medea's smile vanished. She took a step back. "Wow. You've picked up a live one, Sammy." Narrowing her eyes, she gave a cool look back to the angel. "Careful there, pretty boy, you don't want to get yourself too riled up. You might just fall."

Evan shrugged. "Maybe I already have."

Both Medea and Sam stared at him. He never took his eyes from the demon, and his mouth did not move, but Sam heard him quite clearly inside his own head.

"_You get Medea and the three on the right. I'll get the other four – on my count."_

"You know, if I have," Evan continued aloud. "I don't have to fight fair."

"_One."_

Sam gathered himself, both mentally and physically. This was going to be tough, not nearly as easy as subduing a single demon and exorcising it after tying it to a chair. He flexed his arm. In a sheath at the small of his back was a knife. It wasn't just any knife. It was Ruby's demon killing knife. It was also the knife Ruby had used to kill his brother. The bone handle was stained a dark brown from all the blood that had spilled upon it, demon blood, which gave it power over them. Intermingled with the demon blood was Dean's, and that gave _Sam_ power. It had been formidable when the Winchesters first encountered it. Now it was even more so.

"_Two."_

Medea strode up to Evan and stopped. "You haven't been tainted. I can smell the grace in you. You're nothing but a big-talking fledge..." The she-demon paused, cocking her head slightly as she looked at Evan from the corner of her eyes, eyes that slowly widened. "You!" she said softly. "No. It can't be!"

Evan grinned at her. "It can," he said. "And it is."

"_THREE!"_

In one swift move Sam whipped the dagger from his belt and thrust it home through Medea's throat, killing her instantly. His follow-through brought him around to meet the demon who came up behind him. With one hand he slashed its throat with the knife and with the other sent a third demon flying through the air to land sprawled across the Impala's hood. In the distance he could hear Evan fighting off the others.

Bright even in the morning sun, angelic light exploded forth to illuminate the entire road. Sam heard the demons shriek, and when he dared to open his eyes again he saw at least one make its escape from its host body. Said body fell in a boneless heap upon the asphalt as Sam turned his attention to the demon he had pinned upon the Impala's hood.

This demon had taken an older man, one in his fifties or so, the same age John Winchester had been when he died. Dark hair was peppered with gray. Lines were carved deep around eyes the color of a summer sky, indicating a man who either smiled or squinted a great deal. Judging from the tan, Sam guessed the latter. He was probably a farmer from one of the houses nearby.

The sky blue eyes turned black as Sam approached. Like a cat, the demon hissed at him.

"You can't tell me," Sam said quietly. "That this was just a fact finding mission. It doesn't take seven demons to ask a few questions, and I don't see Medea having guts enough to take me on again over the appearance of a _fledgling_ angel without some incentive." The demon tried to get up. Sam extended a hand and "pushed" him back down on the hood with a bang. "It's my turn to ask the questions."

The demon curled his lip. "Ask away. I don't know anything."

"Who sent you?"

"I don't know."

Sam raised his chin and curled his fingers slightly. The demon gasped in pain. "Who. Sent. You?"

"I don't know!" The demon writhed beneath the pain Sam was inflicting on it, virtually howled when Sam amped up the pressure. "Medea! Medea got the orders...aaaugh!"

"Orders from who?"

"I...I...swear. I don't...please..." Gasping, the demon's body started to convulse, and a trickle of black smoke began to run from its nose. It shrieked as Sam's hand closed in a fist. "Ruby! It was Ruby!"

Sam looked back over his shoulder and addressed Evan, who, despite the fight, was as unruffled as ever - clean-cut and handsome, looking like he had just stepped off the cover of TV-Guide. "She knows we're coming."

Evan frowned. "How?"

At this the demon laughed breathlessly. "Psychic trip wire. She knew Sammy here would eventually hunt her down, and made damn sure she'd get advance notice."

"And she sent you to kill me?"

The demon shook his head. "No, no she didn't. She sent us to give you a message."

Sam exchanged glances with the angel. Evan appeared as startled as Sam felt.

"What? What message?"

"I don't know."

"Like hell…"

"I don't know, you bastard! If she told anyone she told Medea, and you f-in killed her didn't you! So screw you Winchester. Now you'll never know."

Infuriated, Sam took another step forward, tightening his fist. He ground his teeth together against the pain as he wrapped his mind around the demon's essence and began to pull it free from the human body. Like a leech it was reluctant to let go. Smoke swirled around the prone body, flowing from nose and mouth to form a dozen little eddies loathe to put any distance between themselves and the warm human flesh.

Sam cocked his head and took a deep breath, shattering the demon's hold over its host as he tore open the veil. The roar of flames overwhelmed the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. He could feel the heat rising up from the pavement at his feet, and smell the reek of sulfur. A thousand voices cried out in agony. One more joined them as Sam forced the dark soul back down into Hell and slammed the door shut behind it.

It was over quickly. The demon's host body slid from them Impala's hood to lie crumpled upon the ground - still and unmoving – regrettably, dead. Sam swayed, and went down to his knees, and might have joined the farmer on the pavement had Evan not caught a handful of his jacket. For some reason he could not catch his breath. He couldn't catch _a _breath. Something had short circuited in his head again, and this time it was obviously something important.

"Sam?"

The angel's face vanished as Sam's eyes rolled back. He still struggled to breathe, and now struggled to remain conscious as well. He actually felt his heart stop beating.

_This is it. Oh my God! This is it!_

"Sammy! No. No, no, no...not yet. Not yet dammit!"

Thunder rumbled. Sam could smell the rain. He could feel Dean's hands on his face, the knife in his back...

"_Sammy?"_

Jake. It was Jake who had stabbed him, who had severed some important connection between mind and body. Sam couldn't breathe. He couldn't make his lungs fill with air no matter how hard he tried. There was only blood, and pain, and Dean's voice, fading off into the distance.

"_Hey. Hey! It's not that bad. It's not that bad. We'll get you patched up as good as new...Sam? Sammy?"_

"SAM!"

Sam's eyes popped open, and so did his mouth. With one huge, shuddering effort he sucked in a deep breath of air, and then another. His head felt like it was being crushed beneath some heavy weight. Pain throbbed at his temples. He could feel blood running from both nostrils and down his chin from his left ear. Something soft, cloth torn from a t-shirt, was pressed down over his nose. Temporarily blinded, he was at the mercy of whomever it was helping him and he hoped to god it was the angel. He had no choice but to comply as he was helped to his feet and guided over to sit in a car. From the feel of it, it was the Impala.

Gradually the bleeding stopped and his vision cleared. He was indeed sitting in the Impala. The door was open. He was sitting sideways in the passenger's seat. Evan knelt in front of him on the pavement, patiently observing his recovery with a frightened look on his face that made him look even younger.

"You okay? Sam?"

Sam started to nod and thought better of it. "Yeah," he said weakly. "Thanks. That was a bad one."

"Understatement. You were turning blue."

"Not my color." Sam smiled wryly. "Is it?"

The angel wasn't amused. "No," he said quietly. "It isn't."

"So," Sam put a trembling hand to his forehead, wiping away sweat that had beaded up there during his attack. "Are you worried more about me, or your mission?"

Evan didn't answer the question. Instead he stood up and walked around to the driver's side door. "You're right. It is_ my_ mission. It was selfish and stupid of me to drag you into it. You shouldn't be doing this. I'm taking you back to Bobby's. Hell, I should be taking you to the nearest hospital!"

"You damn well won't take me anywhere!" Heedless of his nausea, Sam reached over and plucked the keys out of the ignition.

"You think you're the only one who can play mind games with an internal combustion engine?" The angel demanded, and with a flick of his wrist the Chevy roared into life. "Get in the car, Sam."

Shaking his head, Sam spoke roughly. "No. We're going after Ruby."

"I'm going after Ruby. You're not."

"Screw you," Sam rose, slightly unsteadily and got all the way out of the car.

"Dammit, Sam, listen to me!"

"I was wrong, okay?" Sam shot back. He took a wavering breath. He was too worn out to be angry anymore. "Back there, these past five years – I was wrong. I thought I could just forget it and walk away, but I can't. If there's any hope for me at all, I need to go for it whether I like it or not, because yeah, maybe I did drop the ball with Ruby. I should have cleaned up my mess and taken care of her a long time ago. So whatever God needs now, I'm in. I don't like it. I don't like _you_, but I'm in, and that's final."

Even was adamant. He looked Sam in the eye and said, "No. I'm taking you home."

"This is my home," Sam indicated the car.

"I meant to Bobby's."

"And just what do you think I'm going to do there, huh? It doesn't matter, Dean! I'm going to die whether I'm lying on my ass on Bobby's sofa, or kicking demon ass out here. You can't save me, so stop trying!"

Abruptly the Impala's engine shut down. Their surroundings grew completely silent, save for the rustle of wind through the cornfields surrounding them. Sam stood looking at Evan across the roof of the car. The angel was staring at him with an odd expression on his face, one of both hurt and confusion.

Sam scowled back. "What, damn you, what?"

"You called me Dean."

"Yeah, well..." Sam murmured, embarrassed, distraught. He pressed his thumb and forefinger hard into the corners of his eyes. "I'm not exactly running on all cylinders these days." He raised his head again, glaring across the Impala's roof. "You're right. You started this. You dragged me into it again, now you live with it, you prick!"

Evan paused as if he were going to continue the argument, but then seemed to change his mind. "Fine, you're going, but I'm driving. Give me the keys."

On this, Sam couldn't argue. His vision was still fading in and out. With a grim expression he tossed Evan the keys. The angel plucked them out of the air and slid into the driver's seat. Sam sat down in the passenger's seat and slammed the door. The angel twisted the keys in the ignition, threw the transmission into drive, and whipped the Chevy around back toward Chicago, leaving a patch of rubber and seven bodies behind in their wake.

Sam leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Evan had done the pain block on him again, he was beginning to recognize its signature, but this time the pain was leeching through anyway. It was not his poor health that caused his heart to continue racing in his chest, but fear. Evan had interceded only seconds before Sam might otherwise have died.

There wasn't much sand left in his hourglass, and Sam knew it.


	5. The Number of the Beast

"I can't do this, Cas."

Castiel was sitting on a bench outside the motel room where Sam had decided to call it a night. Dean paced back and forth in front of him. The older angel wore the human form Sam and Dean had become familiar with many years earlier, looking like a rumpled police detective in his natty trench coat and crooked tie – Peter Falk's Columbo. All he needed was a pencil and a notebook and he'd look more like Columbo than Columbo.

"It's your assignment, Dean," Castiel replied succinctly.

"Well it's bogus!" Dean stopped pacing and faced his superior. "This is killing me."

"Technically speaking..."

"Oh, shut up. I don't need any smart ass commentary on the state of my existence, you know what I meant." Raising his arms, Dean ran his hands through his hair, not bothering to hide the pain he felt. "God…Sammy. I don't know what to do..."

"I was going to say," Castiel interjected quietly, as if his underling had not just told him to shut up. "That technically speaking, you've done this to yourself. You were advised not to involve Sam and yet chose to go against that advice. Now, I'm afraid, you must live with the consequences."

"You sent me after Ruby!"

"And?"

"I can't leave Sam out of it! The bitch stabbed me in the back!"

Castiel studied him carefully with a look that made Dean want to just choke the life out of him – if he could have done such a thing. "Dean. Are you more worried about Sam's need for vengeance, or your own?" He stood up. "Ruby killed you, yes, but in doing so she gave Sam the strength he needed to defeat Lucifer. Her error has put her further out of favor with Hell. Her threat level is low and Sam knows this. Hunting her has not been a priority."

"Until now, and now it's become Heaven's priority too? What the fuck, Cas!" Dean took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "Why_ are_ we going after her? If it's not revenge, if it's not justice, or even just to mop up a rogue demon, what is it?" He followed closely as Castiel abruptly turned away from him. "Don't hedge, damn you. If you didn't know before, you sure as hell know now."

Raising his face to the horizon, Castiel studied the broad field of stars scattered across the dark sky above them. "Find Ruby, find the abomination," he replied finally. "Find the abomination and destroy it, lest all that you and Sam accomplished five years ago be undone."

With a snort, Dean took the seat Castiel had vacated on the bench. He hated it when the older angelic set went all Shakespearian. "What abomination? With you it could be anything – a zit on her ass..."

"It's a creature that by all accounts should not be. It is abhorrent to all realms of existence." Castiel turned to pin Dean with his eyes. "Not just Heaven and Earth, but also Hell. Ruby hasn't just been hiding from us, but from her own kind. That she sent Medea to you is a bad sign. To do this has put the one she shelters at great risk, and I do not know why she would do such a thing. It's…troubling."

"The one she shelters – the abomination?"

"Yes."

Castiel paused, glancing up toward the heavens again for a moment, as if seeking permission to speak. Apparently he got it, because when he returned his attention to Dean he said:

"Ruby is protecting her child."

Dean blinked stupidly, fully realizing the concept of being "struck dumb." He fumbled for a reply even as his mind fumbled to understand what Castiel was saying. "Her what? Ruby has a kid? Did she steal it or something? What…"

"It is a child of her body," Castiel said, and Dean heard a definite tone of disgust in his voice. "This much we now know."

"But…she's a demon, Cas!"

Castiel nodded slightly. "You should know this, Dean, being what you are, what you are at this moment. Possession is all encompassing. Angel or demon, our essence becomes interfused with that of our hosts. The blood Azazel fed to your brother as a baby was not that of his human vessel, but his own. If I were to cut myself it would be my blood that is spilled, not Jimmy Novak's."

Dean shook his head. "I've never heard of a baby demon."

"That's because there are none. Demon seed is tainted, sterile in the womb of a woman – or a female demon – this was Lucifer's doing, another way for him to keep them firmly under his control. It was no demon who impregnated Ruby, nor was it a human male."

"Then it couldn't have been Sam," Dean said, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Thank God."

Castiel met his eye. "I wouldn't," he said. "Thank God."

"What?" Dean felt a chill run down his spine. "Cas, are you saying this…abomination, it _is_ Sam's?"

"We don't know for sure," the angel murmured. "But we know that no demon, and no human, could have broken down the barriers Lucifer set in place to keep his creations from reproducing on their own."

"How very _Jurassic Park_ of him," Dean grunted. He regarded Castiel solemnly. "No demon, no human, but one of Azazel's super-kids could have knocked her up?"

Castiel rolled a shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "It's possible. No, it's likely." He looked slightly sheepish, as if reluctant to say what he revealed next, not because it would go against his orders, but because it would upset his friend. "Dean, you must realize that Sam himself is an abomination. He ceased being human a long time ago, and as powerful as he's become, think of how potentially dangerous this child could be."

"Jesus…." Dean moaned.

"No," Castiel remarked softly, "just the opposite."

* * *

><p>Dean remembered dying. He knew some angels that didn't, preferring to distance themselves as far as possible from the fact they had once been human. Some of them actually believed it, and even those that didn't, often retained no memory of who they had been before. Dean was an exception, primarily because he desperately wanted to remember where he'd come from. He refused to be a cold, arrogant, always subservient angel. He needed to retain his link to humanity. Had his vanity manifested in anything other than his love for the human race, God would have considered him one of the Fallen and chucked him out. There were those who put him in this category anyway. Dean wasn't particularly popular among the angelic ranks.<p>

He remembered dying – twice – and he remembered Hell too, even after he'd been resurrected, even after he'd died a second time. All of this made him rather unique. He wasn't sure being unique was a good thing necessarily. Sam would probably agree.

"Why us?" he asked softly.

Sam didn't answer. After a long day on the road they had been forced to stop again to let Sam rest. They'd no sooner crossed the threshold of their motel room when a seizure took hold and he'd collapsed. It another bad one. Convulsions wracked his body, throwing his pulse into an erratic rhythm and stopping his breath. Dean was breaking some sort of protocol by keeping his brother alive and knew he'd have to pay for it in some way or another, but for now he didn't care. Once again he tapped into what few healing gifts he had and saw Sam through this latest attack.

_I'm just patching up what I can, sticking my fingers into holes, but eventually I'm gonna run out of fingers, and the dam is gonna break. But you're not going to Hell, Sammy, not now, and not ever if I can help it._

When it was over Dean left him sleeping quietly in probably what was the most comfortable, restful sleep Sam had experienced in years. Dean stood by the window, watching him sleep, smiling wryly at the thought of being a "guardian" angel.

"I remember that day. The fight with Lucifer," he whispered softly. "I don't know how many demons I killed to get to you, but I knew I had to. I couldn't leave you, Sammy. How could I?"

Then, arriving at Sam's side, he'd realized his brother was in trouble. As he looked on he could tell Sam was beginning to falter, losing power, losing his life. He seemed to age right before Dean's eyes, shrinking in upon himself, his eyes rolled back so far in his head only the whites could be seen. To Dean's horror he saw that a circle of dead grass had formed around Sam's feet, and he realized something had to be done.

He'd thought at the time it was a futile gesture. All he'd done was place his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"_I'm here, Sammy. I'm here now. Everything is going to be all right."_

It had been like being struck by lightning – at first. Dean felt every nerve ending in his body screaming in agonizing pain, yet he himself felt oddly distant from it. He could comprehend the pain, but not really experience it. What he did feel was an odd sort of "pulling" sensation in his gut, an odd sort of tension that rose up from his groin into his chest, and the only thing he could find to compare it to was the earliest stages of sexual arousal.

_The magic fingers gone haywire._

He'd realized what he'd done would kill him. At the time he hadn't known why, but that answer came upon being inducted into the angel corps and gaining a few "abilities" of his own. He'd inadvertently provided Sam with a living battery, and Sam's use of it had gone beyond his ability to control. His mind and body had been fighting for survival, and pulling energy from any source available – hence the dead grass. The same fate awaited Dean unless he let go and left Sam on his own.

_No. I'm here, Sammy. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you. _

There were two others who knew what was happening – one friend, one enemy. Dean remembered seeing Bobby struggling up the hill to where Sam and Dean stood. The old Hunter fought off a trio of demons to reach them, screaming words of warning Dean could not hear above the wild beat of his own heart.

Then suddenly, the sound stopped, and he heard Bobby's scream of anguish as clear as a bell.

"NOOOOO!"

Dean closed his eyes. The Hell hound had been much, much worse. The second time he died he remembered thinking, "Oh, it's only a knife."

It had been Ruby, fearing Sam's success. She'd come up behind them and stabbed Dean in the back, severing his spine. He held on to Sam as long as he could, but his knees had buckled almost immediately and he fell from legs gone numb. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ruby race back down the other side of the hill. He heard the rapport of a gun as Bobby took a shot at her, and in his head he heard Sam call out his name.

Prayer was an alien concept to Dean Winchester, but that day he found himself repeating a single line from the Lord's Prayer over and over again.

_Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil…from evil…deliver us from evil….deliver…us…_

After that, things got fuzzy. The next thing he remembered clearly was looking up to see Castiel standing over him with a horrified look on his face. Dean expected maybe a "hello," but the first thing the angel said was:

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

* * *

><p>The room was dark. All color had faded to varying shades of gray from near black, to the pale color of a morning mist. Sam woke and had no idea what time it was, and at first, wasn't quite sure where he was nor what he was doing there. It took him a while to remember, longer than usual. His head was throbbing. Gradually he recalled their arrival at the motel, and getting bitch slapped by a seizure not two steps into the room. The last thing he remembered was a rag being stuffed into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue when the convulsions started.<p>

That was _all _he remembered, besides the dreams that seemed more memory than fantasy. In this latest round of dreams he was back in the hospital during those long, lonely days of his recovery when he had nothing more to do than watch television and wait for the nurses to come torture him. He had been a John Doe, to them anyway, because that had been easiest. They'd shuttled him off to the cheap seats because he had no insurance, no money and no family. The "good Samaritan" who had "found" him visited as often as he could. It was during one of these visits, not long after Sam came out of his coma, that Bobby told him Dean was dead.

Sam felt grief wash over him. Time, they said, heals all wounds, but Sam didn't believe it. His pain was barely diluted. All the loved ones he had lost, the mistakes he'd made, Ruby's betrayal, his illness – it all came together in a knot of guilt and grief and remorse at the very heart of him. It would never go away and it was all just as sharp and painful as it had ever been and maybe more. Then something else had crept in to underscore it all, and that thing was dread. He'd known he was dying since the day he woke up in the hospital.

Lying on a sagging mattress in a dingy motel just outside of Chicago, Sam knew the end was just around the corner. He could feel the patches Evan had put into place. They were the only things now keeping him alive. The inhuman power he'd been given, that he'd used despite every warning not to, was devouring him from the inside out. His brain was Swiss cheese, all his neurons completely fried. If it weren't for Evan he would either be a drooling vegetable right now, or dead.

_I won't survive the confrontation with Ruby, and even if I do, I will be dead by Christmas. Evan can't hold me together forever. _

Outside the motel a train went by on a distant track. Sam heard the low call of its horn, and the faintest sound of its wheels clacking over the rails. He turned his head toward the window and saw that the curtain was open just slightly, and framed between the long fall of those drapes, stood the angel, Evan.

He was standing there looking out the window, staring out across the parking lot and into a neighboring field. There was just the barest blush of color along the horizon, and the way the light fell upon the angel gave the impression of folded wings at his back, their tops rising high above his head. He was standing in three quarters view. Just the slightest shift of position would render the wings invisible again, like a hologram. And so it was when Evan turned to look at Sam. He turned, and the wings vanished, leaving behind only a young human, not some mystical Heavenly being.

That angels really had wings, if only in a virtual sense, had come as a surprise. Dean had brought home that revelation after his first encounter with Castiel, but it hadn't really sunk in until much later. At the time they had been much more interested in the revelation that a) angels actually existed and b) one had hauled Dean's ass out of Hell. The wings weren't wings in the truest sense – angels didn't really fly – but were used to fold space and time, transporting the creatures quickly from one place to another. Sam learned this fact from Bobby, who, always thirsty for knowledge, had pinned Castiel down on the subject.

"Feel better?" Evan asked quietly, shaking Sam from his reverie.

"Feel like crap," Sam returned. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, sitting up and instantly regretting it as his head started to throb. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "What time is it?"

"Six thirty. It's Tuesday."

Raising his head, Sam stared at his companion. "Tuesday? I've been asleep..."

"You've been sleeping for over twenty-four hours, yes."

"Why didn't you..."

"Wake you?" Evan shrugged. "I figured you needed the rest."

Sam scowled. "And meantime Ruby has a head start toward her next hiding place." He sighed deeply and slowly rose to his feet. "Is there a coffee maker in this dump?"

"Dresser."

While Sam made a pot of strong coffee and downed his meds with a cup of tap water, Evan remained standing by the window, only now with his back to the sunrise. The angel seemed preoccupied, more subdued than he had been. Sam didn't ask why. He didn't really care – at least for the moment. He needed drugs to ease his pain, and coffee to chase away the remnants of his dreams. If he hadn't known better he would have thought his brother had come back to haunt him.

As the coffee brewed, Sam sat down on the bed. The dreams were starting to bother him. Evan shouldn't have started him thinking about Dean, although he was relieved to hear his worst nightmare hadn't come true. Dean had escaped sentence in Hell. It made him wonder, however, just where Dean _had _gone. Angels existed. Sam still had his doubts about God, and Heaven.

"Is there really a Heaven," he asked quietly, and wasn't sure if it was the question itself, or that he had spoken, that startled his angelic companion.

Evan's eyes came back into focus. "Yes," he said promptly.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Is it everything it's said to be?"

Evan quietly pulled the drapes fully closed again and crossed the room. Sam watched as he flipped off the coffee maker and pulled the small glass pot from the warmer. He poured into one of the Styrofoam cups provided, but instead of drinking the beverage himself, he handed the cup to Sam. Gratefully, Sam accepted it. He drank, but the coffee left a sour taste in his mouth so he set it aside.

"I don't know any more than you do, Sam." The angel leaned idly against the dresser. "I'm out of the loop."

"What do you mean? You're out of the loop? You're a freakin' angel."

"Exactly," Evan replied. "We're soldiers. We don't lounge around by the pool, we guard the gates." His eyes grew distant once more. "It's the sacrifice we make to become what we are. There've only been a few angels who have gotten the big promotion, and I don't know any."

Sam snorted softly. "So you don't _really_ know Dean isn't in Hell."

"He isn't." Evan refocused, and his brows dipped. "Is that what this is about?"

Reluctantly, Sam nodded. "I can't get him out of my head lately, which is your damn fault." A lump caught in his throat. He swallowed heavily. "I've spent the last five years wondering what torment he's been going through, if they turned him, and then you show up and tell me we were wrong, that Lilith's death did break the contract for good." He caught the angel's eye. "I have to know for sure."

"I'm sure. Dean's not in Hell."

"So he's in Heaven."

The angel looked squirmy. "No," he admitted.

Sam stared at him. "No? What the fuck - _no_? Where is he then?"

"Sam...look, while you were sleeping I had a chat with Cas..."

"Don't change the damn subject! Where is my brother? Is he a spirit, is he trapped…"

"No," Evan said hastily. "He's fine, okay. He's…content. Can't that be enough?"

For a moment Sam didn't say anything. Wasn't it good enough that Dean was content? It was true that he didn't fully trust Evan, but he saw no reason for the angel to lie about this subject at least. Whatever else the angel was keeping from Sam was one thing, but Dean….

"I'm sorry," the angel suddenly blurted. "I'm so sorry, Sam." Tears glittered in the luminous green eyes. It took Sam off guard.

"For what?"

"They told me not to involve you in this, and now I understand why. I never meant to cause you pain, but I have, and…"

"And what?" Sam prompted.

"It's shortened your life. I've killed you, Sammy."

Sam ignored the use of his pet-name. He gave the angel a frank stare, feeling oddly calm in the face of Evan's grief. "No," he said. "Lucifer killed me." With a deep sigh, he ran his hands through his hair. In the past five years it had started to go grey, particularly at each temple where silver strands wove their way liberally through the brown. "I'm not even forty," he added softly. "I haven't even met a Hunter's average life span."

"If I hadn't come…"

"I still wouldn't make it to forty," Sam said bluntly. "It doesn't matter, Evan. I know I've been living on borrowed time. A few months, a year, it's not going to make much of a difference to me." He sighed again, thinking of the year Dean had spent living under a contract for his soul and the desperation both of them had felt toward the end. "You know don't you?"

Evan tipped his head, his brows knitting. "Know what?"

"You know what's going to happen to me when I die."

The angel flinched as if Sam had slapped him. "It's God's call. Nobody knows what their fate will be until the very last minute."

"But there are odds. What do the angels think? What does Castiel say?"

"You make us sound like Vegas bookies."

"What's your opinion?" Sam asked quietly.

Evan pushed himself off the dresser and walked away, returning to the window. He peered out between the pulled drapes, letting in a sliver of bright sunlight as he moved them aside. Holding out one hand he let the stream of light fall onto his palm. Whether it was an illusion, a hallucination, or some angelic power, it appeared as if the light became liquid, pouring over the angel's hand and between his fingers like molten gold.

"There are places," he said. "Out West, on the prairie, where trees have grown up around barbed wire fences that have been there for decades, so it looks like the wire goes right through the tree trunk." He withdrew his hand from the light. "You can cut the wire on either side of the trunk, but there's still a piece of it hidden inside the tree."

"Yeah," Sam replied. "I've seen trees like that."

The angel turned back around to face him. "Azazel's blood didn't just change you physically. It polluted your soul, and like a tree, you grew up around it. Your body will die, but your soul will still be tainted." With a deep breath, Evan looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "You won't be allowed in Heaven, Sam, not as long as you carry that taint." After a minute pause he concluded. "Your odds suck. Place your bets with Hell."

"Terrific," Sam muttered. Not what he wanted to hear for sure, but nothing he hadn't already suspected.

"So, knowing it probably won't get you anywhere, do you still want to go after Ruby?"

Sam took a deep breath. He felt like crap even after the rest he'd gotten, and the healing Evan had done to him. It would be so easy just to turn around and go back to Bobby's. He could hang up his holsters, crawl into bed, and try to get some peace before his death and the torment that would follow.

But, he thought, that wasn't going to happen.

"It would be the right thing to do," he replied, smiling ever-so-slightly. "Wouldn't it?"


	6. Heroes and Whores

Dean knelt at the foot of the grave, running his fingers over the faded grass. Beneath it he could sense the dog-tags Sam had buried there long ago, their father's dog-tags. Stronger still was an achingly familiar "presence" of sorts – that of himself. Someone, Sam or maybe Bobby, had returned to scatter the ashes of Dean's corporal body here too.

When he was alive Dean would have never admitted to ever feeling lonely. In truth, he had always had some sense of it. It terrified him. The brief amount of time he'd spent without either his father or brother at his side had been unbearable. He'd sold his soul to avoid it, never realizing that loneliness and despair were part and parcel of Hell's vacation package. Hell taught him many things, most of them bad, but it also honed his ability to deal with loneliness, and that, ironically, made him a good angel.

Angels were lonely beings. They could look but not touch. They could feel, but most of the time could not express, entrapped in a perpetual log jam of emotional turmoil from which there was only one escape – disobedience, a fall from grace. If being an angel was lonely, being a dispossessed angel was much, much worse. To combat temptation, angels kept busy and tried not to think for, or about, their selves.

Dean had always buried his emotions in work. Work prevented him from dwelling too much on the things that hurt him, and longing for the things he knew he could never have. Even when he wasn't on the job he was "working." He spent his spare time tending to his tools of the trade – his weapons, his car – or charming his way into someone's bed. If ladies were unavailable, Dean played pool or poker, earning the money that kept gas in the Impala and food in his own belly. Leaving humanity behind and becoming one of God's worker bees, hadn't been much of a transition.

The only thing Dean found himself really missing was Sam – his brother, his best friend and confidant.

He hadn't been exaggerating when he described his job in Heaven as "WalMart door greeter." Dean ushered newly arrived souls toward their destinations, and on rare – very rare – occasions had to keep order when something or somebody went awry. Even for an angel he was lonely. He performed his duties alone, and had never been accepted by his fellows. They shunned him, knowing his past. It was that spirit of camaraderie he'd had with Sam that Dean missed. He missed brotherhood, and feeling needed. Together he and Sam could do anything, including putting a stop to the Apocalypse.

Sometimes Dean wondered if Sam weren't barred from Heaven not because of Azazel's taint, but to keep him as far away from Dean as possible. Heaven and Hell both knew how dangerous they could be together.

It should have been Sam wearing the wings though, not Dean.

Every time Dean pointed a new soul toward the Pearly Gates he thought about Hell. He couldn't stop himself. In Hell he had also been assigned to new arrivals, but his duties were not so benign, nor had his own torture fully ended. Alistair gave him souls who were simply victims of their own folly – those who, like Dean himself, had made deals with demons to save a loved one. None of them were truly evil - none of them deserved what they got. Dean couldn't even rationalize what he did.

Kneeling at the foot of his mother's grave, Dean curled his fingers into the cool earth, and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He could still recall his first victim quite clearly. It had been the spilling of her blood that broke the first of the sixty-six seals set upon Lucifer's prison door. He had been fresh from a tutorial from Alistair and bitterly resigned to his duties, convinced that inflicting agony upon others would make the memories of his own torture bearable. Work, he needed work to make him forget. The only work available in Hell was that of torturer.

She'd been a young mother who had made a deal to save her infant son ten years earlier. The boy lived and thrived, and she'd raised him to be the best he could be in the time she had remaining. On the eve of his tenth birthday the Hell hounds came. Her husband and son would later assume she'd been killed when she walked in on a burglary in progress.

Upon her descent into Hell she'd wound up bound in iron shackles and strapped spread eagled upon a slanted wooden table.

_Don't. Don't think about this, don't…_

Dean had taken his time, not stalling so much as he had been prolonging her terror. He had a job to do. He'd turned off compassion. He'd smothered guilt. Those things had only brought pain, and he was done with pain.

At least, he was done with his own pain.

He cut off her clothing first, piece by piece. Nudity increased vulnerability, produced fear – God had given torturers that tool when he'd cast humankind from the Garden. She had begged for mercy the entire time but Dean had ignored her pleas. He'd popped the buttons from her shirt one by one, and pulled it away from her chest with the tip of his knife, exposing her skin. In doing so he'd accidentally nicked her and drawn blood. A crimson spot no bigger than the head of a pin rose to the creamy white surface of her left breast….

And thus a righteous man, drawing blood in Hell, shattered the first Seal.

It had also been the nail in Sam Winchester's coffin.

The fluttering of ethereal wings broke through the screams echoing through Dean's mind, interrupting the memory before it went on any further. Dean had never gone into any specific details about Hell to Sam. Anna, wherever she was, knew some things, but not everything. Only Castiel, who had been the one to finally break through Hell's forces and free him, had any real perception of what Dean had done.

He looked up at Castiel with tears in his eyes. "What do I have to do to save him, Cas?"

Castiel appeared sympathetic. On any other angel the expression would have been patronizing, Castiel was Dean's friend before he'd been his superior. The sentiment was genuine.

"I don't know," Castiel said. "But Dean, your purpose here is not to save Sam. Those were not your orders."

"I can't let him go to Hell, Cas. I can't." Dean rose to his feet. "Not when I know…."

Castiel reached out and grabbed him by the arm. "Dean, listen to me. Listen to me as your superior and as your friend. Whatever you choose to do about Sam, I will not stop you, but remember your orders. Do not fail to accomplish your assigned tasks. It is vital, perhaps more so than any of us know. Ruby's child is a danger that _must_ be eliminated."

"Cas…"

"Don't screw this up, Dean."

"Like I usually do?" Dean asked, jerking his arm out of the angel's grasp. "Why in the hell didn't you assign someone else to this one, huh? Why use me?"

"I have my orders too," Castiel said quietly, and abruptly vanished as quickly as he'd appeared.

Hurt, frustrated, grieving, Dean picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could in the direction in which Castiel had vanished. He knew he would not disobey his orders, but afterward...

Dean would find a way to save Sam, even if he had to go back to Hell himself.

* * *

><p>Evan's pain blocking had stopped working. The constant, nagging pain that had dogged him for the past five years had come back, and worse than before. It was reminiscent to the pain he used to feel when his abilities first manifested, when he'd be knocked flat by visions of things that were to come – usually deaths. The only difference was that when the vision was over, the pain would go away. This pain never went away. Sometimes it felt as if his head were surrounded by a helmet made of knives, all of them stabbing at him in rapid succession.<p>

"Have you eaten anything lately?"

Sam started. He thought he'd gotten used to the angel's abrupt comings and goings – apparently not. He glanced quickly over at the passenger's seat to confirm Evan's presence there.

"Coffee."

"I meant food."

"I know what you meant. I figured you'd know what I meant." Sam said. "No. I haven't. The medication I take makes me sick. I can't afford to spend money on food that's just going to come back up again."

The scowl on the angel's face deepened. "Jesus, Sam…" he murmured.

"Won't you get in trouble upstairs for that kind of language?" Sam asked.

Evan didn't answer, instead he said, "Ruby's on the move. She left Toronto two days ago. Cas thinks she's headed for Saginaw."

"Damn, that means word got back to her."

"Or she's been doing some scrying herself. We need confirmation."

"You know, I've wondered about that from the get go. I can't believe a couple of angels can't locate one demon running around on Earth."

"She's good." Evan shrugged. "She's an old witch, and the one who taught her was even older. There's a lot more to her than just hex bags and kinky sex."

Sam shot him a quick glance. He'd noted back at the motel that Evan's mood seemed to have radically changed from the quirky smart-ass he'd been when he'd first showed up. He seemed distracted and darkly moody – which was more Sam's bag. Something had set the angel off, something he was keeping from Sam.

Instead of grilling him, however, Sam decided to back off instead. Habit, he supposed. Dean had always been one to internalize, and over the years Sam had grown adept at getting him to open up when he didn't necessarily want to open up. You couldn't push him. The more you pushed Dean the more he shut down and shut up.

"I know Ruby saw the Black Plague as a child. She told me," Sam said. "So how old was her mentor?"

Evan grunted softly. "You're an educated man. Let me give you a hint." He turned toward Sam with a wry look. "Ruby's mentor was named Nimue."

"Nim…" Sam knit his brows. He'd lost a few brain cells after the stroke, and sometimes the knowledge he retained took a while to find. This, though, came to him immediately. "Wait…_the_ Nimue?"

"Yep," Evan replied. "She made that knife you're carrying. It's related to another weapon she's famous for."

"You're shitting me?"

"I'm an angel, I don't shit."

"Funny."

"Yeah," the angel said quietly. "Your brother has the dubious honor of being killed by Excalibur's second cousin twice removed." His tone turned bitter. Sam heard him mutter under his breath: "Shoulda got a freakin' tee shirt."

Sam drove on, quietly absorbing this information, information that made him understand what they were setting themselves up against. Ruby was far more dangerous than he'd ever realized. After a moment he asked, "Whatever happened to Nimue?"

"She died," Evan said bluntly.

"How?"

He felt the angel's stare. Sam turned to meet his gaze, and something in it made him shiver. It was frank, accusatory, and unforgiving.

"There are only two people alive who know the answer to that question," Evan said quietly. "One is Ruby – if you can even consider her _alive_. The other is the man who killed her." He looked away out the window. "She had more than one name you know. In some versions of the story she's called Viviane, in others, Elaine, but her real name was…."

"Lilith," Sam interjected. His voice was rough. "Nimue was Lilith."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Evan's gaze go from the window to his hands, his head bowed almost as if he were praying.

"Your tainted soul is just a convenient excuse. Heaven is scared of you Sam. You killed one of the most powerful she-demons in history. You stuffed Lucifer back into jail. The very idea that you _might_ get in makes the big-wigs upstairs shit their pants."

"So I've been banned."

"You've been banned."

"Nice to know."

"For the record, I think it sucks," Evan said sourly. "You deserve better."

Sam couldn't disagree with that. He'd done a lot of things wrong, made a lot of mistakes, but he'd tried damn hard to make up for it. The bottom line remained – he'd been dealt a bad hand from the very beginning. He'd fought it though, fought it with everything he had. He couldn't be held entirely responsible for his failures given his dark opposition, and in the end he'd made the right choice. That should mean something.

Apparently, it didn't.

"Does Dean know?" Sam asked. "Does he even remember?"

"Remember…?"

"Me, himself, being human."

"Oh. Yeah. He talks about you a lot."

"I'll bet," Sam said wryly.

"All good," Evan assured. "He misses you."

Sam repeated his first question after taking a moment to compose himself. "So does he know," he asked roughly, "Does he know about me, that I'm going to Hell when I bite it?"

"Yes."

"I wish he didn't."

"They say in time everyone forgets."

"Ruby didn't," Sam said quickly. "She told me it was more denial than anything else. Those who want to forget do, and those that don't, don't." He gave the angel a quick look. "Dean won't forget."

"So both of you are punished," Evan said softly.

"And why is that exactly? What did we ever do to deserve the shit we got, other than being freaking born in the first place?"

Evan didn't reply, but then the question had been halfway to rhetorical anyway. Sam could sense something brewing beneath the angel's surface without resorting to any psychic tricks. A cautious little probe, however, confirmed his suspicions. Evan was upset about something, and that's all Sam caught before the angel realized what he was doing and shut him down.

"I felt that." Evan said coolly. "Man, Sam. You've got balls. Trying to psychically screw with an angel? That's exactly why they don't want you in Heaven."

"So I've got nothing to lose do I?" Sam shot back in a similar tone. "You want to tell me what you're keeping quiet about?"

"Not particularly."

"If it's regarding the case I have a right to know."

Evan was obviously reluctant.

"Aside from the fact that it's bugging the crap out of you," Sam added. When Evan remained silent, he continued. "You're different," he said. "I got that right away. The younger generation always thinks they know it all, always want to strike off on their own to prove it – I know, I was there once. You've already flirted with disobedience by getting me involved in your assignment. You follow orders, but don't necessarily like them, and you're always trying to come up with a loophole." He nodded. "Yeah, I was just like that."

"You would have been a good attorney," Evan chuckled.

"No, I would have been a shitty attorney, because I have a heart. I've been screwed up, and screwed over all my life, and yeah, I admit I'm pretty bitter right now, but I'll still keep going and I'll still try to do what's right. If whatever you're sitting on is related to this case, I have a right to know, orders or no orders, so spill it or I'll dump your feathered ass out on the side of the road and go to Saginaw on my own – and don't think I don't have ways of keeping an angel off my back. If Ruby can do it, so can I."

"We're not hunting Ruby," Evan said bluntly. "We're hunting her kid."

Sam had to look to see if he were joking. From the grim look on his face – he wasn't.

"Her _kid_?" he repeated. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"From when she was human?"

"From five years ago."

Almost unconsciously, Sam stomped his foot down on the brakes, bringing the Impala to a sliding, screeching halt in the middle of the road and nearly putting Evan through the windshield. The angel seemed to have expected this kind of reaction. He braced himself and avoided cracking his vessel's skull.

"I'm guessing you did the math," Evan said after the car came to a complete halt. He glanced behind him. "I think you left half the tires on the pavement back there."

"Demons can't get pregnant." Sam felt his chest tighten. His vision swam, and memories of his time together with Ruby flooded his mind. He'd used protection – hadn't he? Of course if Ruby _wanted_ to get pregnant she would have had no trouble sabotaging things. "They can't get pregnant," he repeated.

"Ruby did. Apparently you're _special_."

"No." Shaking his head, Sam stared out the window, his hands clenched in a white knuckled grip around the steering wheel. "No. I can't…"

"You can, and you did, and now the little bugger has Heaven's collective underpants in a knot." Evan glanced on the rearview mirror. "Sam if you don't start driving or pull off the road, the next semi that comes over that hill is going to leave _us_ all over the pavement."

"I was careful."

"Not careful enough. Sam…"

Sam's stomach churned. He felt as if he were going to be sick.

_I have a kid. _

_I have a half-demon kid. _

"Oh my God."

"SAM!"

"Shit!" Sam jerked the wheel and hit the gas, moving the Chevy off onto the berm just as a dump truck came barreling over the hill behind them. It breezed by the driver's side door with only inches to spare, the angry driver blasting the horn as he went past.

"Sam you need to calm down," Evan said breathlessly.

"Calm down?" Sam asked, fixing him with a hard look. "Calm _down_? You just dumped on me the fact that I not only have a kid out there, but it's half-demon and we're _hunting_ it!"

"Him."

"What?"

"It's a boy. We're hunting _him_."

"Oh, well thanks for clearing that up," Sam said bitterly.

Evan sighed, and there was no mistaking the remorse in his tone. "I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times…"

"You're asking me to kill my own son."

"I asked you to help me find Ruby. That's all. You can still bow out."

"And let _you_ kill my son?" Sam stared at his companion, and in Evan's expression he saw a reflection of the turmoil going on inside his own head. "Could you?"

"It's not human," Evan said quietly. "It's an abomination, a wild-card, and it can undo everything, Sam. Ruby has the key to Lucifer's cage in her hand. If he gets out again, there won't be anyone who can stop him this time." He met Sam's gaze unwaveringly. "If this kid lives, Hell will rise."

Sam looked away. Physical pain was nothing compared to what was now stabbing him mercilessly through the heart. "They said that about me once."

"And maybe if you raised your son the way your father raised you, things would be different. This boy was raised by a demon, a demon just pissing herself to get back in Lucifer's good graces. He won't turn the tables on them like you did. He'll throw open the doors to Hell and say 'come on in.'" The angel's voice softened to a barely audible whisper. "You can't save him, Sammy. It's too late."

Without replying, Sam turned the car back onto the road. He got the impression that Evan was surprised, but regardless of what they would do when they got there, the first step toward making that decision was actually getting to Sagniaw in the first place.

"Someone should have told me and maybe it wouldn't be too late."

"We didn't know."

"Riiight.

"I swear, Sam. Me, Castiel, those of us who _would_ have told you, weren't in on the secret and I'm not even sure the top dogs knew until recently.

Sam scowled. "Why would _you_ have cared? I don't even know you. We just met."

"I…I've heard Cas talk about you, your brother, the things you've done." The angel smiled, looking ever-so-slightly smug. "You're heroes."

Sam looked away with a grunt. "Heroes and whores – the only difference is that whores get to choose who fucks them over, and the pay is a hell of a lot better."


	7. Dreamscape Confessional

They stopped at a run-down motel in the heart of Saginaw, Michigan. The weather had taken a turn. Temperatures dropped radically and a cold rain began to fall. Dean took over the driving when conditions worsened and Sam's exhaustion became all-too-obvious. Sam paid for the room and stumbled through the freezing rain to the room. Dean had the door open before Sam could get the key in the lock.

"Take a shower, and eat something," he ordered, ushering him inside. "When I get back I'll help you get some sleep."

"Where are you going?" Sam asked wearily.

"Scouting," Dean interrupted before Sam could object. "I know you were going to try to scry her out again, but I want that to be a last resort."

"She's not going to let _you_ find her."

"Yeah, but she knows we're on her tail. Maybe she's freaked enough that she's slipped up somewhere and left a clue. If she did, I'll find it."

"Okay, sure. Whatever."

Dean left him, hoping he'd do what he was told and get some food. He hadn't pretended to think Sam could get to sleep on his own. He'd seen the lines of pain around Sam's eyes even if he hadn't already sensed it. Even as exhausted as he was, the headache wouldn't let him rest. What sleep he managed to get would be spotty at best and he needed something more restorative. The idea of putting Sam out and leaving him out until after Ruby and her kid were dispatched had crossed Dean's mind, but scrapped the idea. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't just push Sam aside entirely. The monster they hunted was their own flesh and blood, Sam's son and probably only progeny. He had a right to be involved whether anyone liked it or not.

The first place Dean went after leaving his brother was the bar across the road. Evan was a few years shy of being legal but a fake ID and a little Heavenly nudge got Dean through the door and a drink in his hand. His superiors would be appalled at such an abuse of angelic power. Dean didn't give a rat's ass. They wouldn't approve of him drinking in the first place, but he didn't give a rat's ass about that either.

He drank more out of habit than anything else, because it would take a tanker truck full of whiskey to get him buzzed, and because just going through the motions calmed his nerves. He downed a fifth of gin before he left the bar. The music playing on the juke box had been good, and he'd been tempted to hustle some pool just for old time's sake, but even when he'd been alive Dean knew when enough was enough. There was a time to kick back and relax, and there was a time to do the job. It was now time to do the job.

Castiel could have searched the entire state of Michigan within seconds. It took his underling about an hour to search 99% of Saginaw and her surrounding suburbs, _and_ comb through library archives to see if there had been any signs of demonic activity in recent days. He wasn't surprised when he came up with nothing.

He had been surprised that Sam _had_ come up with something. From what Dean had learned since becoming one of the angel corps – including what he'd told Sam – Ruby was no slouch. She had both witchcraft and the powers inherent to demon-kind at her disposal, not to mention centuries of knowledge passed on to her from Lilith. Dean wasn't familiar with the scrying spell Sam had used, and he understood his brother had some pretty powerful mojo of his own, but he still couldn't believe Ruby had let herself be tracked that easily. Something felt – off – about it.

_We could be walking right into a trap._

But why? If Ruby wanted Sam dead, she could have easily killed him at any time over the past five years, whether she was running from her fellow demons or not. Instead she waited for the angels to join the chase, and for Sam to actually find her, before doing anything, and _then_ she made the risky choice of sending the hired help after him.

Dean paused outside the motel room door. He'd come back from his search a few minutes earlier, coming to rest a block or so away instead of just materializing in the room. Walking helped him think, and kept his vessel in good shape. He figured Evan would appreciate having his body back in the same state it had been in when Dean borrowed it.

How was this going to end anyway? Dean wasn't sure. He still didn't know how he was going to save Sammy from dying, let alone dying and being cast down into the Pit. Being a lesser angel, Dean didn't have the power to resurrect a human. Just keeping Sam patched together was stretching his abilities to the max. He doubted he could get any help from Castiel, and asking another of his superiors would definitely push his own luck.

_Would a crossroads demon even deal with an angel? And what would I have to offer? Technically my soul belongs to God now. It's not mine to barter with anymore._

With a sigh, Dean rested his head on the door, poised there with his hand upon the doorknob latch. He closed his eyes and opening up his mind, he made one last sweep of the city, searching for Ruby's psychic scent trail.

Almost immediately his head came up and his eyes grew wide. He'd felt her presence, and it was coming from the other side of the door!

* * *

><p>Sam obeyed Evan's orders without a grudge. He took a shower, warming a body chilled to the bone, and managed to eat a bowl of soup and a sandwich from the diner next door to the motel. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd become, unable to remember the last decent meal he'd eaten. The food stayed down too.<p>

When Evan didn't come back for some time, Sam decided to take sleep into his own hands. His head was throbbing, the pain extending into the back of his neck and down into his spine. When he was sure his dinner was going to stay put, he took his meds, including a double shot of a semi-illegal sedative for which he'd paid an exorbitant sum of money. He chased it all down with a hearty swig from a bottle of Tequila he'd acquired from the bar across the street and within minutes had passed out in the bed.

He'd hoped he wouldn't dream this time, but he did. He always did.

The lake was familiar. He and Dean had been there before many times. Though their primary routes often changed under varying circumstances (including being pursued by the law, or their enemies) Hunters tended to keep true to certain "markers" along the way. This particular Wisconsin lakefront was one of the Winchesters' regular cross-country stops. John had inherited it from Dan Elkins. The fishing and hunting in the area was good, and the land wasn't posted. If they needed to spend a night, or longer, there was a cabin a few miles up into the woods on the lake's easternmost side. They'd made use of the cabin once or twice, once when they got caught in a sudden, nasty snowstorm and had nowhere else to go.

Sam had first seen the lake in the summer time, when the cool, clear water was a welcome respite from days spent confined in the back-seat of a car with no A/C. Sam and Dean had swam and splashed in the water with so much mirth and laughter John was finally forced to let down his guard and join them. In all his life Sam could recall only a few times his father had played with them – played like a normal father. This was no war game designed to teach them survival skills, this was just _fun_. That day had become a cherished memory for both Sam and Dean, because it had been such a rare experience.

After John died neither Sam nor Dean ever returned to the lake – whether it was together, or by themselves. They were of like mind on the matter, although they had never discussed it out loud. It was as if both of them had crossed the location off the map. They found another place in Wisconsin to make their pit-stops and never went back…until now.

It was summer once more, the first big tip-off to Sam that he was dreaming, and the lake was virtually still. Only a few wind-borne waves lapped at the rocky beach shore in a soothing rhythm: "Hush, hush, hush…."

Sam sat on top of a picnic table, his feet propped up on the bench, with one hand dangling a beer between his knees. He squinted out across the water. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, his feet were bare, but the sun was bright and warm. The breeze that stirred the waves also stirred Sam's hair, just enough to cool the sweat beading up upon his sun-warmed skin. He felt no discomfort, none at all, and for a moment he wondered if he were dead.

"No, just sleeping."

He turned his head to glance over his shoulder. There on the beach, sat the Impala. Her chrome gleamed in the sunlight; her highly polished black hood reflected the sky above. Leaning against her grill, with his arms crossed over his chest, stood the angel, Evan. He was also looking wistfully across the lake, although he still wore boots and oddly, the battered leather jacket that had once belonged to Dean, and before him, their father.

The voice, however, had not come from the angel. Evan didn't speak, but he did turn his eyes toward Sam and nod slightly, looking not _at_ Sam, but beyond him.

Sam quickly turned to look in the other direction.

Ruby was standing there beside him.

Oddly, he felt no sense of alarm, partially because he knew he was only dreaming, and partially because of the expression she bore. She looked as she had the last time Sam saw her, clad in the body of the young brunette she'd last taken, but with one exception. Ruby had never exhibited fear. During the times in which she had appeared afraid, she'd been faking it.

She was not faking this. It was obvious in the way she wrung her hands and shifted her weight, in the way her eyes darted back and forth, and the tremor in her voice. At some point she had been crying. Streaks of mascara ran in crooked lines down her face as if her black demon eyes had sprung a leak.

"Sam," she said hoarsely. "I don't have much time."

Sam climbed down from the table. With a calculated slowness, he placed his beer down on the bench and approached her. "You're in my dream?" he asked quietly, cocking his head slightly. "How? Why?"

"It…it's hard…for a demon." She cast an uneasy glance toward Evan. "We're not angels. It's easy for them."

"Because there are no lies here," Evan remarked.

"Because it's a difficult spell, you ass," Ruby snapped back. Her eyes narrowed. "And you're a fine one to talk about lies. Why don't you tell him what _you're_ hiding?"

"Mind your own damn business!"

"Tell me, did they castrate you when you got your wings? Oh, no, wait – they didn't have to. You always were a ball-less dick."

The angel's jaw clenched. "Watch your mouth, bitch. You're defenseless here and you know it."

Sam glanced from one to the other. "So why," he repeated, interrupting the exchange before it went any further, "why are you here, Ruby?"

She looked away from him. After a moment she replied, "I made a mistake."

"Try several."

"Evan," Sam admonished. "Let her talk."

"I need help, Sam," Ruby whispered. She cast her eyes back toward his. They were dark, black, reflective, like the steel skin of the car behind them, and they were filling with tears. "You have to help me. Please!"

"You betrayed me."

"I know."

"You killed my brother."

"I know. Sam, please…."

A hot flash of anger suddenly swept over him. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh, his lips curled back in a snarl. "Why should I do _anything_ for you?"

"I loved you!"

"You loved Lucifer more, and you still do. I know about the boy, Ruby. I know what you're planning on doing with him."

Her expression shifted, growing more alarmed than before. "No," she whispered. "I'm not. I can't!"

Sam shook her, hard. "Don't lie to me!"

Abruptly a hand fell upon his arm. Evan was there, stopping him from giving the demon another shake. "Sam, wait. She's not lying." At Sam's startled look he explained. "I wasn't just blowing smoke out my ass, and neither was she. She's a demon. It was a hell of a spell she had to cast to get in here, and she doesn't have enough strength left to mask anything. She _can't_ lie to you, not here in _your_ dreamscape."

Sam let Ruby go, and lowered his hands from her shoulders. His brow knitted as Evan turned to her and asked, "Is it Sam's?"

She nodded, looking at Sam, not the angel as she replied. "But I didn't realize…I didn't know this would happen. If I did I would have never…" She stopped, and never finished.

"Either way, you gave Sam a little understudy didn't you?"

"No," Ruby whispered frantically. "That's not…I was wrong. You're wrong. Lucifer is first and foremost an archangel…"

"A decidedly warped archangel," Sam interjected hotly.

"He would never touch the kid!" Ruby shrieked. "Don't you get it?" Her gaze shifted back and forth between human and angel almost frantically. "Don't you get it!"

Evan took a step back. "It's a true abomination," he murmured. "Lucifer only tolerates a human vessel because he has no other choice. She's right. He'd never take a half-demon kid as a vessel!"

"I made a mistake," Ruby repeated, backing away, now clearly terrified, "a horrible, horrible, mistake!"

"Ruby…"

She shook her head, tears still staining her cheeks. "Sam," she pleaded. "Help me. Please help me!"

He heard the crash of thunder. Looking up, Sam could see dark clouds rolling across the sky like a hoard of demons. They blotted out the sun. He heard a woman's agonized scream.

"RUBY!"

She was gone. The storm, the lake, the beach were all gone.

Sam sat up, gasping for breath, his eyes stinging from the sweat running down his forehead and his fists clenched in the bed sheets. He smelled blood. His nose was bleeding again. Swinging his legs off the bed he sat on its edge holding his throbbing head in his hands. Distantly he heard the click of a lamp and the darkness was edged out by a dim yellow light. He watched a drop of blood fall from his nose onto the carpet.

Slowly raising his head, Sam saw Evan standing in front of him. "I know where she is," he said hoarsely.

The angel's expression was grim as he nodded. "We need to go, Sam, right now."

* * *

><p>It was an ordinary ranch house, circa mid 70's, and looked disturbingly similar to the one occupied by the Brady family. Dean ran the theme song through his head – it was practically obligatory – and wondered idly how in the hell he would have taken care of five siblings. One was hard enough.<p>

_They all had hair of gold, like their mother…_

"So," Sam said.

…_the youngest one in curls._

"What _are_ you hiding from me?

Dean suppressed a groan. Sam hadn't said a word since they'd left the motel, nor for the first ten minutes they'd been sitting in the car watching the house they believed Ruby and her son now occupied. Not breeching the subject was too much to hope for, and Dean knew it.

_Here we go._

"And don't tell me you aren't," Sam concluded. "You said yourself Ruby couldn't lie in my dream, and she said you were, so either way, you're a lying bastard."

"That's a little harsh."

"So is taking advantage of a cripple."

Dean was genuinely shocked at the accusation. "What? What are you talking about?"

Sam met his gaze with a stony expression. "You've been pulling little Jedi mind tricks on me all this time. I did a little psychic self-test and I found all the 'look the other way' suggestions you've been putting in my head. If I wasn't half brain-dead…."

"Sam," Dean winced. "You're not…"

"If I wasn't half brain-dead…" Sam continued mercilessly. "I probably wouldn't have fallen for it so easily, and believe me, now that I know what to look for, you won't be able to do it again. So, do you want to come clean about what you're trying to keep from me, or do I have to waste time and energy busting through your smokescreens to find out myself?"

"This isn't a real good time, Sam." Dean pointed at the house.

"You expect me to survive this?"

The question was softly spoken, earnest, not intending to be anything but a simple fact. They both knew whatever awaited them inside the house wasn't going to be pretty. Sam was giving Dean the chance to do the right thing by him, offering to accept truth without consequence, to hold no grudge.

Dean glanced over at the house again. He'd never been comfortable with the powers Sam had been gifted – no, cursed – with, the psychic abilities he'd cultivated despite every warning. Sam had honed his mind into a powerful weapon, turning on Lucifer himself, using what he'd learned to continue the fight against evil despite the dangers in doing so. Dean had never liked it. It seemed to make his brother more kin to the creatures they hunted than to a human being – to Dean himself.

After death, Dean had inherited a few abilities of his own, and the irony of his former discomfort had not been lost on him, nor was it easy to overcome. His angst regarding Sam's abilities had carried over into his afterlife. Even at his low rank Dean should have been able to manipulate Sam enough to keep his secret safe, but always reluctant to screw around with psychic hocus-pocus, he was – so to speak – developmentally delayed for an angel of his status. The truth was he _had_ taken advantage of Sam's illness. If he hadn't Sam would have recognized him immediately.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," Dean murmured, and before Sam could protest, he reached out and put the tips of two fingers against his brother's forehead. "But you're not going in there."

Sam immediately went limp, slumping against the passenger's side window with a soft moan.

Taking a deep breath, Dean left the car, re-materializing just outside the front door of the house. Flitting around like a flippin' moth still made him dizzy, and putting Sam out had taken a lot more energy than he'd expected. He took a minute to catch his breath before he pulled another trick out of his angelic bag of tricks to coax open the locked door. It had not occurred to him to just pop into the house on the first trip. Unlike Castiel, Dean hadn't honed the ability to sense just what he was popping into before he got there. Cas could jump from the top of the Empire State Building to the proverbial head of a pin even if said pin was sitting on the opposite side of the country, atop the Golden Gate Bridge.

_I'd crash land in the middle of a cornfield in Topeka._

Just popping in and out of the Impala had taken a lot of calculation, and he half suspected it only worked because he was so attuned to the car in the first place. Even after being away from her for a very long time, he could still visualize her long, sleek body both inside and out, right down to the minute details. He knew where every tiny flaw could be found, from the slightest ripple in her shiny black skin, to the scorched mark on the carpet beneath the driver's seat Dean had left once when he'd dropped a match.

_I miss her. I miss Sam. I miss being on the road – and God, I never thought I'd say __**that**__._

Dean pushed open the door and stepped inside. He took a few steps down a short hallway which then opened up into a brightly lit living room, and it was there that he stopped abruptly.

Two things immediately jumped out at him. One was the sight and smell of the enormous amount of blood soaking into the wall-to-wall carpeting. The other was the fact there was a small boy standing there in front of him, a small boy who Dean recognized as the one they sought, simply because of his uncanny resemblance to Sam at the same age.

_Except_, he thought. _Sam never snarled like that._

Seconds later the child rushed him, and Dean became painfully aware of the fact he was in way over his head.


	8. The Bad Seed

"_SAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"_

Sam woke with a garbled cry, raising his hands to clutch at his head. The psychic scream echoed through his mind, bouncing off the insides of his skull like a rubber ball launched inside a small room. Alarm bells of pain began shrieking in protest. His battered body teetered on the edge of going into a seizure that would without a doubt, kill him.

But he held on, and held out, until the ringing in his ears began to subside and the darkness before his eyes receded. For a moment all he could do was stare dumbfounded at the empty driver's seat. Whatever just happened had not only thoroughly cleaned his clock, but busted down a few walls as well. A burst of anger made him growl softly to himself. It was, however, short-lived. At the moment, getting back at his brother for jerking him around with angelic mind-games was not a priority.

_I swear though, that if by some chance I do make it through this alive, I'm going to kick his ass._

"Dean?" he said roughly. He turned his head, looking the back seat, and through the windows into the darkness outside. There was no sign of anyone, anywhere. The most likely place, however, for Dean to have gone was inside the house after Ruby, and unless Sam had dreamed it, the cry for help indicated he was in trouble.

"Sam."

Sam nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the low voice coming from right on top of him. He turned back around to see a dark-haired man now occupying the driver's seat. Recognition was immediate. This was the form of Castiel's original vessel- Jimmy Novak. This was Castiel.

The impulse to throttle him warred with Sam's common sense. A million and one questions boiled up inside him, the least of which was to ask why the angels abandoned the battle with Lucifer at the last hour. Castiel had called them friend, and yet had still thrown Sam and Dean to the greatest alpha wolf of them all without a second thought.

"Castiel," Sam replied through clenched teeth.

"Dean is in trouble."

_No shit Sherlock._

"And so of course you're in _here_. Why don't you go in _there_ and save his ass?"

"I have orders. I am forbidden to interfere."

"He lied to me."

"He has his orders too."

Sam curled a lip in derision, his disgust making him nauseas. "You know what, Cas. Fuck your orders, and fuck you." He shoved open the door and got out of the car. Naturally Castiel followed suit. "You sent my _brother_ down here to kill my son. How jacked up is that, huh? What is wrong with you people? Do you enjoy screwing around with human lives? Do you get your rocks off on betraying your friends?"

"Sam…"

"Look at me, Cas! I've been friggin' rotting from the inside out for the past five years because I did you a favor. I believed in angels, God, all that 'for the good of mankind' crap, and what did I get in return? I got dumped on the side of the road like garbage! Now I find out you've stolen my brother, and you've put a hit out on the kid nobody bothered to tell me I had!"

"We didn't know, Sam, and that's the truth."

"And when you found out you immediately decided a five-year-old child is a threat?"

Castiel looked anxiously toward the house. "Sam. He cannot be saved."

"Not by your definition." When the angel shot him a startled look, Sam continued, his expression and his voice devoid of any warmth. "You give me one good reason why I should side with you and not him."

"You have every right to be angry." The angel replied softly, but his body language, and the energy coming off of him, spoke of a warning. Sam might have gone up against Lucifer and won, but Lucifer was one of the Fallen. Castiel had all the power of Heaven backing him up. "But you listen to me, Sam Winchester. The threat posed by Lucifer is nothing compared to what might happen if that thing in there is set loose on the world."

"He's just a kid!"

"He's an abomination, and the more we discover about it, the more we realize how dangerous it is." Castiel thrust out an arm to point at the house. "It has no power of its own. It's a leech. It won't free Lucifer, it will suck him dry, and that is why I _can't_ go in there!"

Sam stared at him. "What?" He thought a moment. If what Castiel said was true, no angel could go into the house, for the same reasons why Sam was hesitant to take on Castiel himself in an all-out psychic battle. They all had ties to Heaven. "Because through you…"

"It can get to God." Cas took a step toward him. "It can steal the power of God." The angel's blue eyes practically burned with intensity, but deep within them Sam saw something unnerving.

Castiel was frightened.

"But Dean is in there!"

"Dean just tipped us off to what is happening. He's holding his own for now, but he cannot last." Castiel took yet another step closer. "Sam, if you don't go in there that child is going to destroy your brother, and if Dean fails to protect his connection with Heaven, we will only wish Lucifer had won!"

"I…" Sam looked back at the house, his fury abating as he realized Castiel was telling him the truth. "I don't know if I can." He shook his head. "Cas, I'm not what I was."

"Regardless, you are the only one who even has a chance!" Castiel insisted. "Think of the battle with Lucifer, Sam. Think of the sacrifice Dean made to allow your victory. You can meet this thing on its own terms!"

"Suck him dry before he does the same to me," Sam nodded. "I understand." He turned back toward the house, his anger slaked to a slow burn deep in his chest. His anger was not directed at his fellow man, but at the arrogance of Heaven. He would assess the situation himself, and if it warranted action, he would take action – even if that meant sacrificing his own son.

_And that will be it then. Our name, our bloodline, it will be gone forever._

Sam got out of the car.

_Yeah, and maybe that's a good thing. _

The closer he came to the door, the more cloying the atmosphere began to feel. Nausea made his stomach churn and despite the chill in the air he began to sweat. He resisted the temptation to pull Ruby's knife from his belt. He had no true idea of what he was facing, nor what he would find when he opened the door.

It was slightly ajar, the door. Sam slipped through, following a foot-worn path down the center of the hallway carpet. He could smell the blood long before saw it. The memories it brought with it were a jumble of conflicting emotions – elation and guilt, satisfaction and revulsion. Azazel had set the triggers when Sam was a baby, but it had been Ruby who woke them – a wake-up call in the guise of a little bit of rough sex. Ruby's blood was the key to unlocking the door to Sam's demon-borne abilities. It gave him the power to destroy Lilith, and Lilith's blood had been the key to Lucifer's prison.

Once again, demon blood had been the key to a door that should never have been unlocked - only this time it had not been willingly given.

Sam stopped at the edge of a sofa turned slightly askew. His shoulders slumped.

"Dammit, Ruby."

She sat with her back against a chair, her legs stretched out before her on a white rug literally saturated with blood. It spread out from her body in a nearly perfect crimson circle, like that at the center of a Japanese flag. Her eyes were wide open, staring blindly back at Sam. One hand lay limp at her side. The other was curled upon her chest in a gesture Sam found familiar. In one last attempt to save herself Ruby had abandoned her demon powers and gone back to her human magic. The warding spell she cast had done nothing to save her. There was a tear in her gut big enough for Sam to put both fists through.

It wasn't just Ruby's human host that had been killed. It wasn't human blood Sam smelled, that he could practically taste in the air, it was demon blood. Ruby herself, the demonic soul living like a parasite inside the human woman, was dead.

She had made him love her. It was love created by loss, of grief, and more than a little bit of stupidity, a bond forged of lies, magic and blood, but Sam couldn't deny that they'd had _something_ together. Even betrayal and death couldn't change that fact.

So, for a moment, Sam grieved, and he almost wished he'd known her _then_ – before she sold her soul, before Hell became her master, when the little glimpses of humanity he sometimes saw in her had been all encompassing. It all could have been different for her. It all could have been different for Sam too.

"But it wasn't your fault," Sam whispered, moving past her silent form. "You were almost as much a pawn as I was, and I'm sorry for that."

From Ruby he felt nothing, but there was life left in the house, the closest was in the kitchen. Sam followed its thread, keeping his senses on high alert, checking his back as he made his way across the living room, avoiding the bloodstained carpet. Someone else hadn't. There was a smear of blood on the linoleum just past the kitchen threshold, one clear footprint, and a series of smudges leading off further into the room. Sam went where it led him.

"Dean!"

Like Ruby, he was sitting on the floor, propped up in a corner with blood liberally soaking one arm of his shirt. He had his good hand clamped down tight over his arm, but blood still pulsed through his fingers with every beat of his heart. Unlike Ruby, he was still alive.

Sam dropped down on his knees and pulled his belt from around his waist. "We've got to stop this bleeding." He wrapped the leather strap around his brother's upper arm, trying his best not to hurt him. The bicep had been cut open nearly all the way to the bone. "Where is the kid?"

"Gone for now, and I'm not Dean."

At first Sam thought it was, that Dean was just trying to continue with his subterfuge, but when he took a good "look" at the youth sitting in front of him, he realized how wrong he was. This was no angel- this was a human vessel, the real Evan.

"Where is he?"

Evan attempted a wry smile, but it came off rather sickly. He was obviously afraid and trying desperately not to show it. "Still here, but gone real deep. He said he couldn't fight and keep me alive at the same time, and he said – he said the kid would kill us both if he didn't back off." His voice took on a slight tremor. "I believe him."

"I do too," Sam replied softly. "Castiel is outside, he'll help you. Can you walk?"

"I don't know," Evan whispered. His face was deathly pale. "I feel sick..."

Sam cursed. He stood up, looking around the room for anything he could possibly use as a crutch – a broom handle, a mop, anything. There was a door just opposite the sink. Was it a closet, or an access to the basement? Sam started to make his way toward it, but a soft scuffling sound made him stop and turn around.

There, standing in the kitchen entrance, was a little boy. He was small and thin, with pale skin and light brown hair that fell down over one eye. His hands were in the pockets of a blue and gold hoodie with the Michigan State University logo. The hoodie, his jeans, and the Keds sneakers he wore were all stained with blood, incongruous with his casual stance. From the semi-clean appearance of his face, and the streaks of blood one arm, it appeared as if he'd wiped his face off with his sleeve.

The oppressive feeling, the feeling of dread that had made Sam nauseas upon approaching the house, now increased ten-fold. It came from the child. Sam stared back at him in horror. He had never felt anything like it before, not even when he'd been possessed by the Devil himself. Whatever this boy was, it was dark, darker than anything Sam had ever encountered, as if all the evil in the world were concentrated inside him. Standing in the same room with him was like being in the same room with a black hole.

Sam realized the dangers of a confrontation immediately. Anything he threw at the boy would simply make him stronger. Comparing him to a leech was frighteningly accurate.

_But he's just a little boy! There has to be another way…_

"Hey," Sam turned around. He saw the boy flinch, and quickly held out his hands. "Wait, I'm not going to hurt you." He drew closer, watching the boy's eyes widen and roll as if he were a frightened animal. "I just want to talk a little, okay?"

The boy did not move, but he did not shed the tension in his shoulders, or the wide-eyed look he gave Sam. A table stood between them. Sam moved around it until nothing separated him from the child. At this distance Sam could see his features more clearly, and recognizing himself in them made his heart ache. Reaching behind his back, Sam pulled a chair out from the table, turned it around, and sat down. He was now face to face with the boy – his son.

"I'm Sam. What's your name?"

There was no response, not at first, but after a moment of waiting quietly, Sam saw the boy's eyes regain a bit of focus. The slightest bit of tension left his shoulders. His mouth relaxed. But instead of telling Sam his name, he said:

"You need to go away."

"I'd like to, but I don't think I should leave you here alone."

"Yes you should." The boy said, his eyes, hazel like Sam's, flashed a mixture of anger and fear. "You should go now and stay away. Everyone should just stay away."

Sam regarded him sadly. "Because you might hurt them?"

A snarl twisted the child's face back into that of a wild animal. "Because I _will_ hurt them."

"You haven't hurt me."

This reminder seemed to give the boy pause. He blinked, and cocked his head slightly. "But I will," he said. "I will hurt you." He paused again, cocking his head the opposite direction and narrowing his eyes. "You feel…different."

"I do?"

"You're one of _them_, I know, but you feel different."

Much to Sam's surprise the boy took a step forward. A mental probe, sharp and burning, jabbed him between the eyes enough to make him gasp out loud. It was only a probe, a curious peek inside Sam's head. It wasn't an attack, but Sam realized that even without a conscious attempt, the boy was draining him. All it took was a touch, and Sam didn't dare try to protect himself. Any reaction on his part could trigger a legitimate attack. Sam felt that too, very clearly. The boy had already tasted blood and was still riding high on his first kill. The taint in him was obvious; Sam picked up on it immediately and it made him feel ill. This small child was Ruby's killer. He had murdered his own mother.

The boy had no control over what he was, nor any desire to change that fact. He was very much like an animal. His prey drive was as high as the most dangerous of predators, and his survival instinct was as strong as that of the prey itself. He knew only two things – fight or flight, and now that he had killed, the more likely of the two was the former. He didn't tell Sam his name because he couldn't. All memory of being human had been burned from his mind.

_He's dead. The boy that grew up human, the part of him that was my son, is dead._

Sam had no time to grieve. The boy withdrew his mind from Sam's own. He'd seen enough.

"You're sick," was the conclusion. Just like an animal he had no use for the sick or infirm, and in a split second he had deemed Sam a waste of space.

Sam launched himself sideways out of the chair. He heard something whip past his shoulder, but saw out of the corner of his eye what it was - the boy had finally taken his hands out of his pockets, and clenched in one bloody fist was a six inch piece of broken glass, a makeshift dagger. Sam scrambled to his feet as the boy recalibrated his trajectory and kept coming. His arm slashed back and forth, forcing Sam to retreat with every step. When this attempt to draw blood failed for a second time, Sam braced himself for the inevitable psychic attack. It still knocked him off his feet when it came.

A red-hot javelin of pain skewered him through the back of the skull. He went down hard, crashing to his knees on the floor. The pain was so bad he couldn't even scream. A second attack came immediately after the first, but this time Sam managed to get his defenses up in time. It accomplished very little. Everything Sam put into keeping the boy out of his head was devoured immediately. It seemed as if the more energy the boy siphoned off of Sam, the hungrier he grew.

Sam gasped. It felt as if his hair was being pulled out by the roots, and those roots reached deep inside his brain like thousands of tiny straws sucking his life away bit by bit. His vision began pulsing in and out like a strobe. He could hear nothing but the roar of his own blood rushing through his veins. He reached out a hand and grabbed the boy by the wrist, stopping the glass shard only inches away from his jugular. The child was much stronger than a five-year-old human should have been – but then, he _wasn't_ human.

Neither one of them gave ground. Sam tightened his hand, nearly crushing the bones in the boy's thin arm, but the boy still held tight to his knife. Blood dripped from his fist onto Sam's arm. Like acid, it burned. Sam bit back a scream and felt the smug reaction from his opponent. There was no acid in the blood, but he had managed to convince Sam's mind otherwise. Sam was shocked overall at the vitriol spewing out from the boy's psyche. Dark visions rivaling anything Lucifer had ever sent him flashed in rapid-fire succession through his head. He saw men torn apart, bloody, burning; Hell's basement. He saw Dean there. He saw himself.

The child laughed.

Sam lay on the floor, propped on one arm, with his other raised up to hold back the glass blade. His eyes watered, blurring his vision even more. He felt a thought suddenly enter the boy's mind, saw the physical blow coming before it was even put into action, but even with advanced warning he still wasn't fast enough to avoid it.

A small sneakered foot slammed into his ribs. The crack of bones breaking was followed up by a howl of pain. Sam instinctively let go of the boy's arm to clutch at his chest. He rolled, but again felt his response to be unnaturally sluggish and slow. When the glass shard punched through his back, withdrew, and went in a second time, Sam knew he could no longer avoid launching a psychic counter-attack. He had to protect himself by any means he could.

Despite the pain in his chest, Sam threw his hand back up, but this time did not try to block the physical attack. Instead he leveled a burst of telekinetic energy at his opponent, enough to knock an elephant through a cinder block wall. At the very least it should have thrown the boy across the room. Instead it barely moved him. He took a single step back, momentarily stunned, but not from the blow itself, but from the shock of absorbing so much power all at once. Sam had enough time to scramble away. The boy pursued. As Sam had predicted, the counter-attack had only made his opponent more powerful.

Pulling himself upright by holding onto the chair he'd knocked over, Sam dragged himself toward the far side of the kitchen. Blood was rising up his throat, choking him. He could hear the odd whistling sound in his breathing and knew he was in trouble. Seconds later he felt his feet leave the floor. His body twisted in mid-air and slammed into the upper cabinets. Glass and wood shattered all around him, and this stinging shrapnel followed him back to the floor. He hit it hard and felt air rush from the lung that still worked.

He could only lie there gasping painfully, spitting blood onto the floor, until the sound of broken glass crunching underfoot stirred him back into motion. The air seemed to thicken around him, and an overwhelming feeling of dread threatened to overwhelm his senses the closer the boy came.

Calling on everything he had left, both psychically and physically, Sam lunged up from the floor with a snarl. He knocked aside all his reservations, blanking his mind to the fact he was about to murder a child, refusing to believe this creature was in any way something he had helped create. Whatever else this thing was, it was still the _size_ of a child and in that Sam had the advantage.

One hand snapped shut around the boy's throat like a bear-trap. Long, sinewy fingers wrapped nearly all the way around his neck, squeezing off his air supply. He came up off his feet, held aloft by Sam's grip, and still Sam felt no fear in him. Instead he returned Sam's snarl in kind, kicking his feet and clawing at the hand wrapped vice-like around his throat. The boy's mind was filled with nothing but bloodlust. His eyes held no shred of humanity. He met Sam's gaze with undisguised defiance – and that's when Sam finally had him.

Taking as deep a breath as he was able, Sam locked his mind onto the maelstrom of inhuman fury boiling inside the demon-child, forcing himself not to pull away from the darkness he found there - the sickening lust for blood, the gluttonous need for power, the obsessive drive to kill. Instead of trying to put out the fire, Sam prodded it into an inferno. He recognized all these dark emotions as reflections of his own. Over the years, and through countless errors in judgment, Sam had learned to control them. That was what had saved him from Lucifer. He had refused to let his own shortcomings be used against him.

Now he took a page from Lucifer's playbook. He fueled the flames, crippling his enemy with madness until, losing all its defenses, the boy's mind opened up to him completely. Sam back-pedaled. He gave up nothing. Instead of putting up walls and laying siege, Sam pulled them all down and opened the floodgates between himself and his opponent. _He_ became the leech.

The rush of power hit him like a nuclear explosion, and he realized, belatedly, where the boy's darkness originated, how he'd been able to send Sam such accurate visions of Hell. Too late he realized he'd made a fatal mistake.

Sam had no chance to drain the boy enough to destroy him. It had been too late for that the moment he'd walked in the front door. Just as angels had a connection to Heaven, demons had their own connection. Try as they might to escape it, Hell would always be a part of their makeup – from the strongest to the weakest. Only hours ago the boy had killed a demon, a demon who had apprenticed under Lilith and Azazel, two of the most powerful of their kind to have ever walked the Earth. He had already made a connection with Hell.

And Sam had just thrown the doors wide open – inside his own head.


	9. Interlude in Blue

She had been an aspiring actress, just like hundreds of other plain-Jane mid-western girls who lit out for California with dreams of fame and fortune, and just like the majority of those girls, she ended up waiting tables.

Her plastic nametag said "Christine" but that wasn't how she spelled her name, so she had taken a black magic marker and written a "K" over the first letter. "It's Kristine with a K," she would tell people, but they often seemed to ignore her. She'd tried to get back home from California when her dreams all came crashing down around her, but only got as far as a dusty little town in Nevada. She didn't even make it to Vegas. They gave her a job at the truck stop where she'd been stranded. She had been nineteen then, and stayed for six more years.

At the age of twenty-three, she met the man of her dreams, except in her dreams he stayed with her after they made love in a swanky penthouse suite down in Vegas. In reality they had awkward, sweaty sex in the restaurant supply room surrounded by giant BulkClub Warehouse-sized bottles of ketchup and mayonnaise. He wasn't a foreign prince or even a high roller from one of the casinos. He wasn't even legal – just barely seventeen. Kristine was mortified when she found out.

He didn't stay either. Thirty-six hours later he was nothing but a pretty memory.

Thirty six days later Kristine realized her period was late.

When Evan was born everyone said he was the prettiest baby they'd ever seen, and Kristine believed every word. When he was two years old she packed her things and took him back to California. He landed a commercial gig almost immediately. At the age of four he caught the eye of one of the biggest talent scouts in L.A. and was asked to read for a new family sitcom. Evan got the part – and kept the part for nine years.

At thirteen Evan found himself going through an awkward stage, and then the horror of unemployment. The long-running sitcom had been losing ratings until the network was forced to pull the plug, leaving Evan without a job and without any prospects. He just wasn't cute anymore. For two years he and Kristine lived off his savings, until Evan passed through his ugly duckling stage and started getting pretty again. He started getting roles again too, and in the glare of the spotlight he failed to notice his mother's failing health until it was too late.

As she lay dying, Evan spent a great deal of time in the hospital chapel. He'd always been a bit of an oddity – being a very spiritual child, and one within the wild life of the Hollywood scene to boot. Kristine never discouraged him. Her greatest fear had always been that he'd go the route of so many other child stars, addicted to something nasty, living on the streets, dead…

"Making pornos," Evan would tease. Kristine never found it funny.

He was just sixteen when she died. She never even made it to her fortieth birthday. After her funeral Evan began devoting more time to his Bible studies, and had a folder full of pamphlets from various theological colleges around the country. He seriously considered entering the priesthood, deeply convinced that he had a calling - and it was _not_ acting.

At seventeen Evan officially found God.

At eighteen, God found _him_.

Or rather, an angel did.

* * *

><p>Dean Winchester was an angel. He wasn't supposed to believe in coincidences, because if you believed in coincidences it blew holes in the entire notion of God having a Divine Plan and made you a bad angel. It was hard for Dean <em>not<em> to believe in coincidences because angel or not, he still considered himself a damn good poker player. Dean had to believe that you could beat the odds. If you believed everything happened for a reason, then there was no way you could beat the odds unless God wanted you to, which Dean found unfair.

He thought finding Evan had been a coincidence, but eventually realized he'd been wrong, and that was unfair too.

Possessing someone was something Dean found uncomfortable. It made him more than a little squeamish in fact, something Castiel could not understand in the slightest. Angels like Cas had been created by God, and their true forms varied widely. Younger, low-ranking angels like Dean were drafted from human souls and their true forms remained more or less like what they'd been in life. Therefore Castiel couldn't understand why, if he could cram his larger-than-life form into the fragile shell of a human, Dean found the idea so abhorrent.

"It's not _my_ shell," Dean explained. "And seriously – it's kinda like being intimate with another dude, and I'm so not into that."

"Gender is a human notion. You are no longer 'a dude.'"

"Oh, I am so very much a dude, trust me."

He'd sought out his vessel very carefully, finally locating Evan during a pass through Los Angeles – discovering him on a billboard no less. Evan had gotten a part on a popular soap opera. Dean had spotted him among a cast photo as part of an advertisement for the show. The height, the build, and even his looks were very similar to Dean's. Dean sought him out and was stunned to find him not only to be of vessel material, but very willing to prove himself to God.

When he showed up before Cas in said vessel, Castiel had been livid. "Put him back!"

"What, why?"

"Did you check his bloodline?"

"Yeah, he's good. He's got the right markers for a vessel."

"His blood_line_, Dean, not his blood type."

"Well, no. Does it matter?"

When Castiel reluctantly admitted that it really didn't, Dean ignored his protests and didn't take it any further. He'd borrow Evan to complete his task, and then plunk the boy safely back into LaLa land – no harm, no foul.

But Cas' reaction to Dean's newly acquired vessel lurked at the back of his mind, bugging the hell out of him. He let it go for a long time, never following up on the task of checking out the boy's heritage, until Castiel revealed to him exactly what, and _who_, Ruby was protecting.

Knowing Evan had also grown up without a father, and that he had just lost his mother, Dean felt perhaps he owed it to the kid to do a little research. He looked up the angelic markers encoded into Evan's blood. Since these markers followed the paternal line, they would tell Dean precisely who fathered him.

Dean looked, and then he looked again.

"Ah…dammit, this can't be right!"

_So much for coincidences._

There was no way it could be a coincidence that the vessel Dean had chosen was his very own offspring. He didn't even remember who the girl had been. When he tried to think of her, the only impression he got was of a giant bottle of ketchup.

God, he determined, really did have a sick sense of humor.


	10. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Sam desperately tried to let go of his connection to the boy, but neither his hand nor his mind would obey him. Oddly, what he thought of as he struggled to remain conscious under the onslaught was the time Dean had accidentally electrocuted himself. One hundred thousand volts had rushed through his brother's body, short-circuiting his brain and doing serious damage to his heart. Sam had kept him alive with CPR until the paramedics came. They told him the odds of getting Dean's heart started again were slim but they kept working on him all the way to the hospital, and ultimately Dean had come around. He was seriously damaged, but alive. At the time it was all Sam could have hoped for. In this situation he would not be so lucky.

He could feel himself losing ground. The power he was absorbing was too much for his ravaged mind to handle, too unnatural for his human body to accommodate – even a human body strengthened by demonic tampering. If he didn't close the door on it, it would kill him, and when he died, the boy would just take it all right back.

Sam dropped to his knees. His hand finally lost its grip, but despite the loss of a physical connection, his mind remained engaged with the boy's. The child stood before him, cold, emotionless, and continued to act as a conduit between Sam and all the powers of Hell. Sam could hear the wail of the tortured souls and feel their agony. His eyes were blinded by smoke, his lungs burned by hellfire. The screams of the damned rose to a deafening pitch. This was what fueled the power of demon-kind. They thrived on the agony of human souls. This chorus was made up of countless thousands – billions – of souls all gathered together over the millennia for one purpose, and one purpose only – to give Lucifer the power to overthrow Heaven.

Now Sam could clearly see what he'd done by stopping the Apocalypse. If Lucifer had been able to harness the power of Hell's tortured souls, Heaven would have had no chance of defeating him, but Satan could not have done it alone. In the midst of a maelstrom of unspeakable visions bombarding his mind, and unspeakable pain wracking his body, Sam saw it all with perfect clarity. His role had not only been as the key to Lucifer's freedom, his human vessel on Earth, but also to provide the means for accessing the greatest of all weapons. Castiel had been wrong. Lucifer would be in no danger from the boy, because Lucifer had helped to create him.

Ruby's error, the mistake she'd confessed to making, had not been to bear her demon-child in the first place. Her mistake had been in letting him live once she knew Lucifer had been defeated. It had only been a matter of time before the child's true nature came forth, and without Lucifer to harness the energies he collected, there would be no controlling him. He would simply continue to suck up power from any source he could find, very much like a black hole in space. If he were not stopped everything would be destroyed. All existence – in Heaven, Hell, and on Earth, would cease.

_I can't. Oh, God! I can't. I'm not strong enough! _

Sam swayed on his knees. In front of him the boy took a step forward, his mouth twisting into a sickly smile. Seeing Sam's distress he had now willingly allowed the power to flow from within him, holding the doors open and letting it all surge forth against his enemy. The pain was excruciating, beyond human comprehension. Had Lucifer still been riding him he might have survived; alone he had no hope. In desperation he made one more call, cried out in prayer to the one he knew he could always count on. If they were all doomed anyway, at least he would not die alone.

_Dean_!

Realizing Sam was trying to get help, the boy launched a renewed physical attack. Pausing just long enough to retrieve the glass shard he'd dropped, he rushed at Sam with a clear intent to slice open his throat. Had Sam been able to utilize just a modicum of the power he was siphoning off from Hell he could have diverted the attack and destroyed his enemy. Sam himself could have become the new God. This power, however, was far beyond the control of any mortal being. He could only kneel there upon the floor, paralyzed, helpless, and wait for the end to come.

Without warning, a new pain suddenly joined the fray. Sam screamed, arching his back as he felt a knife drive itself deep into his spine. Memories of his own death - a dark, rainy night and a similar pain – were followed by a heart-rending surge of grief as he recalled the battle with Lucifer, and Ruby's self-satisfied smirk as she murdered his brother.

Nearly blinded with agony, Sam raised his head. The boy stared back at him through eyes gone wide with shock. A hand was wrapped firmly around one thin arm, holding him up off his feet. He dangled motionless in its grip. Blood dripped from the toes of his sneakers onto the floor. From the center of his chest the tip of a dagger protruded, having gone completely through him, severing his spine and piercing his heart along its way, stopping him cold. As Sam looked on, Evan wrenched Ruby's knife back out, let go of the boy's arm, and watched the body fall into a crumpled heap on the floor.

It had not been his own pain Sam felt, but his son's. The boy was dead.

"Dean…" he croaked. "You…"

_No. Not Dean. It's not Dean._

Evan stared down at his hands, both bloody, one still wrapped around the hilt of the knife. His expression was indicative of a soldier having made his first kill, taken his first life in a ruthless introduction to the horrors of war. When he opened his hand the dagger fell from trembling fingers. It clattered upon the floor, coming to rest next to the small body lying at his feet. When he looked up the horrified expression remained, and Sam felt a wave of pity. He was not seeing his brother, the seasoned Hunter, the avenging angel. It was only Evan – confused, disoriented, and frightened out of his wits after murdering what he saw simply as a disturbed child. He could not have understood exactly what he'd done, and Sam was unable to tell him. He hoped Dean had made it clear when he'd urged Evan to take up the knife. There was no doubt in Sam's mind that it had been Dean who initially guided his vessel's hand.

Once again Dean had come through at the last minute, saving the world from its ultimate destruction.

But this time, for Sam, he'd been too late.

The door to Hell slammed shut with one last, devastating surge of power, and all Sam's fuses blew.

* * *

><p>Dean hit Evan hard, wincing at the stab of pain the kid felt when Dean surged back up to take over again. With an offhand apology to his beleaguered vessel, Dean hurried to catch his brother before he collapsed. Sam was seizing before he even began to fall, his eyes rolling back, his limbs flailing as his body went into a series of violent convulsions. Blood was pouring from his nose, his mouth, and trickling from both ears. Dean clapped a hand over his forehead both to assess the damage and to hold him still. What he found horrified him: all the patches he had put in place were failing. One massive aneurysm had already burst, and smaller blood vessels were giving way throughout Sam's brain in a frightening chain reaction. By human definition, he was already dead.<p>

"No. No, Sammy. You're not going to Hell, dammit! Do you understand? You're not dying on me!"

Frantically, Dean reached out with everything he had, tapping what little healing resources he could muster to chase down and repair the damage. Just when he thought he had caught up, something else would begin to fail and take what he'd already done down with it. It felt as if he were trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

_Castiel, help me! Cas!_

No one answered his prayer, and Dean realized he had another problem. He had the ability to heal his vessel, every angel did, and Dean suddenly became aware of the fact his efforts to save Sam were putting Evan in jeopardy. The wound in his upper right arm was severe, the glass knife had cut through his flesh and muscle all the way to the bone, and he'd lost a lot of blood. The more energy Dean spent trying to heal his brother the less he had left to keep his son alive.

"Don't," he whispered. "God, I'm begging you. Don't you dare make me have to choose! Please - please don't do this to me!"

Sam's convulsions abruptly stopped. He went still and limp in Dean's arms. Blood from Evan's wound had fallen upon his face and now ran down his pale cheeks like crimson tears, joining the blood already staining his shirt. Dean pulled him closer, seeking any sign of life. He found very little. Though Sam's heart and lungs labored on, his body was already beginning to cool beneath Dean's touch, and his mind was completely gone. It was obvious he would never wake up again.

Dean moved his hand away from Sam's jugular. Having noticed the bloody fingerprints he'd left behind, he stopped and stared at the scarlet liquid dripping between his fingers. This wasn't Sam's blood. It was from Evan's wound – but now the blood running through the boy's veins was no longer his alone. It was like Castiel said – a possessed man shed demon's blood. An angel's vessel shed an angel's blood.

"Demon's blood," he murmured. Slowly he closed his fist and opened it again. "Angel's…blood."

Looking around himself, Dean spotted Ruby's knife lying nearby. Balancing Sam's head against his chest, he reached out with Evan's good arm and snatched the knife up off the floor. He hesitated only a moment before drawing the sharp blade across his palm.

He grimaced, feeling the soul inside him flinch. He'd taken Evan by surprise again.

"Sorry," he murmured. "I'm sorry."

The wound began to bleed immediately. Fresh blood joined what was still running down his arm, pooling in his cupped hand, dark and glistening like wine in a glass. Gently Dean tipped Sam's head back, pouring the contents of his hand past his brother's slack lips and down his throat. The smallest psychic nudge encouraged him to swallow. Dean repeated the process twice more until he was forced to stop, sensing Evan's connection to his body growing more and more tenuous. If this connection were damaged too badly, he could not live when the angel left him.

Dean pulled Sam close to his chest. Closing his eyes he fed every ounce of energy he had into keeping both Evan and Sam alive, making sure their hearts kept beating, monitoring their breathing. He rested his cheek against Sam's head sending as much healing energy as he could spare into the worst of the damage. If there was power in demon blood, there had to be power in that of an angel. It was a wild, risky plan probably not sanctioned by Heaven, but any advantage he could find, Dean would take if it meant keeping his brother out of the Pit.

His urgent whisper held more than a modicum of desperation.

"Come on, Sammy. Come on!"

* * *

><p>A brunette waitress sat a beer down on the table in front of him and walked away with a smile. Sam followed her progress as she made her way through the crowd, admiring the roll of her hips before stopping to chide himself for being a lecherous creep. Turning his attention to the bottle of beer instead, he took a long pull of the icy cold brew. It was good beer, top shelf, not the cheap shit he and Dean always bought when they were on the road. He savored its taste with a contented sigh.<p>

"You're kidding me."

Sam looked up. Dean was standing in front of him, a clearly disgruntled look on his face.

"What?"

"This is Marcy's Place – that dive bar in Tuscon you like so much."

"Yeah. So?"

"I dunno, just not what I expected." Dean looked around, and then turned an intense gaze toward Sam. "Listen to me, Sammy. I need you to come with me."

"After I finish my beer."

"No, Sam. Now, I need you to come with me now."

"Why?" Sam took another long drink. "Come on, Dean. I'm tired of driving. Just let me chill for a little bit, okay."

"I can't. Sammy, I'm afraid."

Sam started. Dean actually did look uneasy about something, but afraid or not, admitting it was not his style. Something was wrong. Something was _really_ wrong.

"What is it?"

"I'm losing you."

"What?" With a nervous laugh, Sam put his beer down. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're dying, Sam." Dean nodded toward the door to the bar. "If I go through that door alone, I'll lose you." He leaned forward and extended one hand. "So I need you to take my hand and come with me."

Sam looked around the bar, and was startled to see that suddenly he and Dean were the only two patrons left. The bartender made his last call. The waitress was making her way around the room wiping down tables and pushing in chairs. Both of them were giving the brothers irritated looks, clearly wanting them to leave so they could close up shop and go home themselves.

"Sam," Dean said sharply.

"I…" Sam looked past him toward the door. Through the glass he could see nothing but darkness and wind driven rain. Inside the bar it was warm and dry. Maybe there was a room they could rent, stay there, and wait out the storm….

"Sammy, please!"

Sam blinked. Dean was no longer standing at his table, but was now by the door. It had blown open. Wind tugged at the old leather coat as if urging him to step back over the threshold and into the storm, leaving Sam behind. Turning his head in the opposite direction, Sam saw that the bartender and waitress were both gone, and flames were beginning to spread across the wooden floor. Abruptly he rose from his seat and started to follow his brother. Dean let out an urgent shout and waved his hand for Sam to hurry. Now more than convinced of the danger he was in, Sam hastened toward the door.

A wall of flame suddenly shot up from the floor in front of him, forcing him back.

"Dean!"

The fire grew, spreading around him on all sides. Sam could feel the heat intensifying. He could barely hear Dean calling to him over the roar of the flames. Frantic, he turned this way and that, looking for a break in the wall of fire through which he could escape. There was no opening. The only way out would be to go through the flames themselves.

"Wait! Dean, I'm coming!"

Sam sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and rushed through the fire to the other side. A blast of cold air made him open his eyes again. He had crossed safely through the fire, but to his horror he saw Dean turning away from him, already taking one step across the threshold.

"No!"

With one desperate lunge, Sam launched himself across the space separating him from the doorway, reaching out a hand to grab his brother before it was too late. His fingers slipped down Dean's arm. At the last possible moment he clenched his fist, and found himself grasping a tenuous handful of worn leather just as Dean stepped outside and into the darkness beyond.

* * *

><p>Sam moaned and stirred in Dean's arms.<p>

"Sammy?" Dean raised his head. "Sam?"

His brother's eyes were still closed, and his pulse was barely detectable. Dean sent out a tentative psychic touch but recoiled immediately from what he found. His gamble had worked, yet at the same time failed to accomplish what was needed. Sam was still badly injured. _If_ he woke it was obvious he would never be the same. Dean had healed him enough to live, but live with no _quality_ of life whatsoever. Severely brain damaged, he'd be crippled, helpless, living out the rest of his days in an institution. If he retained any knowledge of his identity, any cognitive thought at all, he'd be trapped in a useless body. If he never recovered his senses, he'd be nothing more than a mindless piece of meat. Healing him past this point would take an angel of much higher rank than Dean…

_Or more blood._

"Dammit, Cas! Where are you? Help me!"

Nothing, Castiel did not respond to his prayers. There would be no Calvary come to his rescue. Dean was on his own, forced to decide between saving his son, or his brother.

_Dean, listen to me…._

Evan's voice inside his head was gentle, but insistent, demanding to be heard. He was fully conscious and alert inside his possessed body, well aware of Dean's anguished struggle and the risks they both faced.

_You don't have to make this choice. I will. _

_Evan…._

_I'm not the one who'll go to Hell, and Sam doesn't deserve that. You don't deserve that. Take what you need from me._

_I can't._

_Don't lie. You mean you won't. _

Dean looked down at Sam's haggard face. He'd been put through so much over the past five years – hell, longer than that. It was written in every line on his face, in the dark circles beneath his eyes, and the taut purse of his lips. He looked as if those five years had been more like fifty. Fingering a lock of his brother's hair, Dean ran his thumb over the unusual number of silver strands he found there. Sam wasn't even close to forty, and his hair was going grey.

_He never had a chance. He was doomed before he was even born. How can I let this happen? I can't let him die like this. I can't let him go to Hell._

_Then don't._

_Evan. You don't understand…_

_I understand more than you think. You were too busy hiding the truth from Sam to hide anything from me. I know who you are. I know who __**I**__ am. I couldn't save my mother, but I can save Sam, and more than that, I can save __**you**__. Dean, I'll go to Heaven when I die. I'll see my Mom again. Isn't that better than doing nothing and letting the only family I have get thrown in the Pit? It sucks I have to die, sure, but you can't argue the logic! Let me go, before it's too late._

_Evan, I'm sorry. I never meant for this to happen._

_Don't be sorry. I know **you** never meant for this to happen. _Dean sensed a bit of wry humor in his son's "voice" as he concluded: _I don't believe in coincidence._

The dagger lying at his side caught Dean's eye once more. With trembling fingers he picked it up, and slowly pressed it to his wrist. A quick flick of the blade would open up a major artery, allowing more blood to flow than what he could get from either the arm wound or the cut he'd made in Evan's palm. Such blood loss would weaken both of them, but most certainly it would kill Evan.

What if he did kill his own vessel? Whether considered murder, or suicide, it was still a sin. What punishment would an angel suffer for committing such a horrible act?

Dean paused as another crazy idea wormed itself into his head.

_Evan?_

_Yeah?_

_Okay, I'll do it, but on one condition._

_What's that?_

_I want you to have something in return._


	11. Two Roads to Go By

_Angels don't dream. This is real._

Dean looked down at his hands, stained with blood from fingertips to elbows, a bloody knife clenched in one fist. He stood on a floor strewn with rotting flesh and pieces of bone, and made slick with blood and viscera. The air was stifling hot – permeated with the stench of decaying meat and the burning scent of sulfur. You got used to it after a while. You got used to the screams too, although this day they're muffled behind thick stone walls. He was given a private room for this one, a rare opportunity. Punishment in Hell wasn't usually done behind walls, but in a cavernous room filled with hundreds upon thousands of the damned, each strapped to their own rack, each with their own torturer. Unless you were special, you were gutted in public.

Once upon a time Dean had been special. Alistair had tortured him, and taught him, and when the time came for him to take up the knife himself, Dean proved himself a most excellent student. Now he was back, because he'd tried to save his brother again. This time he'd failed, and this time it was Sam who was special.

Dean raised his head to examine the man strapped to the bloody table before him. Standing slightly up-tilted, the rack made it easy for the erstwhile torturer. Blood ran downhill toward the victim's feet so it would not be in the way. Torso and limbs were easily accessible, and yet victim and torturer were nearly at eye level. It made for easy conversation. For some torturers, like Alistair, much of what they did was purely psychological. They liked playing mind games as much as they liked carving flesh.

Early on, Dean found he was much better at inducing physical pain than emotional distress. In this case the latter was easy. All he had to do was look his victim in the eye.

_Dean. Please. Don't do this!_

He remembered once, when his little brother was about four years old, watching television in their motel room. Their father was "at work" leaving Dean alone and in charge for only the third time ever. Dean had warmed up a can of Ravioli-Os on a hotplate for them to eat for supper. There was a good western movie on TV that night. He'd been distracted, and not watching Sammy as closely as he should have. The next thing he knew he'd heard a crash, the sound of breaking glass, and a child's anguished screams.

_You were supposed to ask me for more, Sammy! You weren't supposed to get it yourself. You weren't supposed to get hurt!_

It was a bad burn, all across Sam's chest, and he wouldn't stop crying. Dean had been afraid someone one would come and they would be in trouble. Questions would be asked, _"Where's your father? Why are you by yourselves?"_ and they would be taken away from their father – all because Dean had screwed up.

Or – even worse – _It_ might come – the thing that had killed their mother, and that scared Dean far worse than the threat of Children's Services.

He tried everything he knew to soothe the hurt. Nothing seemed to be able to get through to Sammy, for it had been his first major injury. He'd always been so overly protected by both his father and brother he was unable to comprehend the meaning of pain.

_Shhh, Sammy it's okay. It's not that bad. You're okay…._

But Sam only cried harder, and screamed louder if Dean even touched him.

_Sam, please! Please be quiet!_

In the end, frightened to the point of panic, Dean's mind finally snapped. He screamed for Sam to "SHUT UP," shook him -and when Sam howled even _louder_ to protest this harsh treatment, Dean hauled off and slapped him across the face. The force of the blow knocked the smaller boy off his feet - he immediately crumpled to the floor as if he had been shot. Momentarily stunned, he did fall silent, but soon after that crawled off to hide behind his bed where he curled up into a little ball of misery and sobbed as if his heart were broken. Hurt feelings had overshadowed the pain of his burn. Dean was supposed to protect him, not ever, _ever_ hurt him.

_Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me anymore, Dean. Please!_

Dean turned his head to the man on the rack. Blood stained his face like a mask save where tears had left white streaks across his cheeks. It oozed from dozens of gashes cut like tally marks all up and down his outstretched arms. Dean had made a cut for each of his own failures. Some were shallow, others he had cut deep enough to feel the blade scrape bone. Sam might have remembered that night long ago, or he might not, but Dean remembered. He remembered bursting into tears the moment his father crossed the threshold, telling John the story as if he himself had taken a hot iron to Sammy's chest, confessing to slapping him, confessing to hating himself for it.

He took a firmer grip on the knife. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He laid his free hand upon the clean, white expanse of his brother's exposed belly. When he removed it the mark of his hand remained, etched in blood. Tears began to fall. He had no choice. Sam might have been the one on the rack, but this – this was Dean's Hell. "I'm sorry, Sammy."

_I'm so, so sorry. I tried. I tried so hard to save you from this. _

The knife bit deep into soft flesh, and Sam started to scream.

"Hey! Dean. Dean!"

He opened his eyes, but at first couldn't see. Groping blindly at the hand upon his wrist, he followed it up to an arm, and then a shoulder, closing his fingers around the softness of a worn cotton shirt. Sweat ran down his back. A cold chill made him shudder.

"It was just a nightmare. You're fine. You're safe."

_A nightmare, how? Angels don't dream._

Dean blinked. His vision cleared, but he remained light-headed and sick to his stomach. He blinked a second time and saw Sam hovering over him. It _was_ Sam, whole and well, and looking back at him with a worried expression. Beyond his brother's shoulder Dean could make out faded wallpaper surrounding dirty glass windows, and ragged, sun-bleached curtains. Part of what was making him feel queasy was the almost overwhelming smell of mothballs coming from the bed sheets tangled up around him.

They were not in Hell. They were in Bobby Singer's guest bedroom. Dean closed his eyes and let out a shuddering gasp of breath.

They were not in Hell.

"Dean? Are you with me?"

"Yeah," Dean said hoarsely, relieved to see the same scene when he opened his eyes again. He struggled to clear his head, figure out what had happened, what was still happening. His body felt slow and sluggish. "Something's wrong," he murmured.

Part of it, he realized sadly, was due to the fact Evan was gone. There was no other presence within the boy's body. It was Dean's and Dean's alone. He had risked sacrificing his son to save Sam, and it had indeed taken the ultimate toll upon Evan. He was dead, his soul gone from the plane of Earth, but – Dean hoped – now reunited with his mother in Heaven. Along with the grief came a sense of pride. The kid would have made a damn good Hunter. He'd died a hero.

This made him also realize something else. He looked at Sam with a sympathetic expression. "I'm sorry, Sammy, about Jacob."

Sam flinched. "Jacob?" He stood back, looking almost as pained as he had in Dean's nightmare. He hadn't known his son's name.

He didn't know the truth about Evan either, and in that moment Dean decided he never would. "Sam, the part that was your kid was already gone by the time we found him. It's not your fault."

Turning his head, as if he could ever hide tears from Dean's experienced eye, Sam nodded. "Yeah, I know. I felt it too." He cleared his throat and hastily changed the subject. "So…what happened? My abilities are gone, I'm alive when I should be dead - what the hell did you do?"

"I…"

Further realization dawned, memories of the moments just after Evan's soul left his body surged back up into Dean's mind, revealing what else was now wrong with him. It hadn't only been Evan's soul that left the building, but a part of Dean too, the part that had once taken an ordinary soul and made it an angel. Angels referred to it as their "grace." Like Sam's demon abilities, Dean's angelic grace was gone….

But not taken - _bartered_ - in exchange for two new lives.

Dean's soul now resided in a body that shared the same genes as the original, and that was as close to complete resurrection as he was going to get. He was no longer an angel. He was a living, breathing human being once again, and despite all that they'd lost, he couldn't help feeling a strong surge of elation.

"I always wondered what it would be like to have an older brother," he murmured, turning his head to peek under the bandages encircling his upper arm and wrist. He hoped Sam had done the stitching; Sam had a lighter hand than Bobby. Bobby's stitches left ugly scars.

"You _what_?" Sam shook his head. "You're going to need to fill me in here, Dean. I woke up in a motel room in Missouri with you half dead and Castiel telling me we've got some avenging angels on our asses. Now he's gone AWOL and I don't know what the hell happened." He crossed his arms over his chest. "And don't forget I owe you some shit for screwing around with my egg basket, as if it weren't messed up enough at the time."

"That's incentive?" Dean asked.

"No, breakfast is incentive. You've been out for days and I know you're probably starving." He interrupted before Dean could get a word out. "And yeah, I know you've lost your halo. Angels don't sleep, and they don't have nightmares."

"They don't eat pancakes either."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Don't push your luck," he growled.

"You want to know what happened or not?"

"Yes, dammit!"

"Then bring me pancakes."

Ultimately Sam relented, and after disappearing for a good hour, returned with the requested breakfast. Dean told him everything over a plate of blueberry pancakes with sausage on the side. He left out the story of a lonely girl he once found stranded in the desert, and the child of light she'd given him. If poor, doomed Jacob had been Lucifer's secret weapon, Evan had to have been God's.

And Dean loved his brother too much to find that very fair.

* * *

><p>Sam stood on Bobby's porch, leaning on the railing and looking off across a yard littered with automobile carcasses. Beyond the towers of rusting junkers the sun had begun to fill the horizon. He'd just awakened from a sleep better than he'd experienced in years, and the simple act of raising his head off the pillow and taking a deep breath no longer caused him pain; or worse - triggered a seizure. He barely remembered a time when he'd felt so good.<p>

But he couldn't forget how much his renewed health had cost. It had been the price of two lives – one barely begun, the other a wealth of untapped potential. Sam found it hard to forget that despite the circumstances, for a brief time he had been someone's father. He hadn't known the boy - Jacob - before he'd been corrupted, therefore Sam could only grieve for what could have been. He found it hurt just the same.

Their survival had also cost them one angel's grace, and a life of freedom. Castiel had given them the means to protect themselves, but they would always have to look over their shoulders. Dean had broken a multitude of Heaven's rules of conduct. With Lucifer safely and thoroughly contained, and the most recent threat eliminated, he was now at the top of the angels' most wanted list.

Dean himself didn't care. He was embracing his new life with gusto, anxious to get back on the road again and start kicking some monster ass. Only half joking, Sam had looked Evan's soft actor's body up one side and down again and told Dean he'd better start putting some more hours in at the gym first. Dean had returned this criticism with his own pointed look at Sam's hair. Healing had not erased the effects of five-years-worth of extraordinary stress.

"You're just jealous, old man."

"That's low, Dean."

"Sorry, Sammy, I'll get you some Grecian Formula for your birthday."

Sam had laughed despite himself. "Bite me, twerp."

Dean had gone on to mention something about no-longer believing in coincidence – but didn't elaborate. God, he said with insistence, had finally paid off a long-standing debt. Sam thought it amusing that despite a now overwhelming _lack_ of grace, his brother remained devoted to a higher power. He himself still had doubts, finding it difficult to shake his old bitterness, but he also had a sneaking suspicion no angels would ever really catch up with them, regardless of Castiel's concerns.

Thinking about this, Sam let out a deep sigh. In the coming weeks it would become a sigh of exasperation brought on by his brother's antics. This morning, however, at the dawn of a new chapter in their lives, it was a sigh of contentment.

"I'm back," he murmured, but then quickly corrected himself with a faint smile. "No, _we're_ back."

* * *

><p><em>If there's a bustle in your hedgerow,<br>Don't be alarmed now,  
>It's just a spring clean for the May queen.<br>Yes, there are two paths you can go by but in the long run,  
>There's still time to change the road you're on. <em>

_ "Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zeppelin_


End file.
